Carolina Herrera inaugurates the exhibition ‘Maestras’ at the Thyssen Museum: «There will always be a place for creativity»

I have three sisters, my mother had three other sisters, and my father, who was like a lion, did not even know what to do to find his place and be heard among so many women. So this thing about empowerment and matriarchy isn’t fashion for me, it’s the world I grew up in. Also, there was the art. Beauty, art, aesthetics… All this was in my parents’ house, my mother and father have been cultured people, each with their own interests. But the art was not there as a lesson, rather it was something that we lived with, almost without realizing it, that we talked about naturally. If I combine these two themes of my education, I realize that it is natural to participate in the Thyssen exhibition.

Carolina A. Herrera, the woman who bears the name of the fashion house and is the creative director of Beauty and responsible for its perfumes, thus explains the brand’s support for the exhibition ‘Maestras’ that has opened in it. The Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum in Madrid on October 31.

Selected names

Artemisia Gentileschi, Angelica Kauffman, Clara Peeters, Mara Blanchard, Sonia Delaunay or Maruja Mallo are some of the artists represented in the exhibition curated by Roco de la Villa, which travels from the 17th century to the present and is a clear atonement for women artists, until recently obscured in the history of painting.

For Thyssen, the exhibition culminates a process of feminist redefinition that she began several years ago. After staying in Madrid this winter, you can see a smaller version of the exhibition in Arp Museum Rolandseck train station de Remagen (Germany).

An artistic experience

What artistic experiences have been important in my life? I would tell you that the important thing has been to go see art, not settle down and look for it as something physical, says Herrera. See how naive I was, I thought the Mona Lisa had to measure meters on each side… If you want a more tangible experience, I’ll tell you recently: to discover Water lilies by Claude Monet An exhibition at the Venice House left an impression on me that I have not yet recovered from.

I don’t consider myself an artist. I would like to be alone and I think the people who love me know my personality in what I do, but it seems to me that being an artist is something else. I know that I believe that in my works there are my ideas, big and small, some of my dreams and curiosities, and that they can also find a spirit of joy and fun, something playful that I think is very much my own. But above all, I see my job as a permanent studies.

About creativity

It’s not hard to find Carolina Herrera colleagues who are pessimistic today, who believe that the element of creativity that has always been a part of their work is increasingly difficult to notice. We have lost the creative process, The Venezuelan answers.

Before, you had to make an effort to look in books, go to places. Now everything is within reach and it is not the same. But I think so there will always be a place for creativity.