19 Facts About Lidy Prati

Lidia "Lidy" Elena Prati was an Argentine painter who was known for her abstract, geometric paintings.

Lidy Prati's artwork called into question representational art and was influential in defining the concrete art movement in Latin America.

Lidia Elena Lidy Prati was born in Resistencia, Chaco, Argentina in 1921 into an Italian and Swiss-German immigrant family.

Lidy Prati's father had been a public accountant in Italy, though, in Argentina, he abandoned this profession and became a prominent textile industrialist, earning him the title, "The Cotton King" of Chaco.

Lidy Prati produced kaolin, wood fiber, chemical products, and owned several car dealerships.

In 1936, at 15, Lidy Prati began school at the Instituto Inmaculado Corazon de Maria "Adoratrices", a traditional Catholic school in Buenos Aires.

In 1938, Lidy Prati received her teaching degree from Las Adoratrices, and in 1942 she moved back in with her parents who had recently moved from Chaco to Buenos Aires.

On 11 March in 1944, despite her parents' wishes, Lidy Prati married artist Tomas Maldonado with whom she had started taking art classes from two years prior.

Lidy Prati continued her artistic career by working as a graphic and layout designer.

Lidy Prati began to work as a clothing and jewelry designer.

From 1971 to 2001, Lidy Prati worked for the Argentine Ministero Relaciones Exteriores.

Lidy Prati performed administrative tasks at the Ministero and in 1980 traveled to Tunisia.

Lidy Prati worked as an art critic on a radio program from 1970 to 1974 and for the art magazine Artinf, which she had co-founded with Silvia de Ambrosini, Odile Baron Supervielle, and Germaine Derbecq.

Lidy Prati experienced unstable financial circumstances due to the loss of her family's business after the death of her father in 1964.

Lidy Prati died on 19 August 2008, in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

In 1944, Lidy Prati contributed her artwork to the one-time publication Arturo.

In 1952 Lidy Prati exhibited with the group in an exhibition entitled Grupo de Artistas Modernos de la Argentina that Pellegrini organized at the Viau Galeria de Arte in Buenos Aires.

Much of Lidy Prati's work reflects the investigations of not just the AACI, but other concrete artists around the world including Max Bill and Georges Vanterlongoo.

In 1970, Lidy Prati co-founded the magazine Artinf with the artists Germaine Derbecq, Silvia de Ambrosini, and Odile Baron Supervielle.