Sonia Sekula

Sonia Sekula (18 April 1918 – 25 April 1963) (also known as Sonja Sekula) was a Swiss-born artist linked with the abstract expressionist movement, notable for her activity as an "out" lesbian in the New York art world during the 1940s and early 1950s.

She was born in Lucerne on 8 April 1918 to a Swiss mother, Berta Huguenin (1896–1980), and a Hungarian father, Béla Sekula (1881–1966), a philatelist.

She lived in America from 1936 to 1955. She attended Sarah Lawrence College. She met the surrealists in exile in New York during 1942. On 25 April 1963 she hanged herself in her studio in Zurich after many years of mental health issues. She is buried in St. Moritz as she had requested in a letter to her mother.

Exhibitions

1943 - Group show Exhibition by 31 Women, Art of This Century gallery, New York

1948 - Betty Parsons Gallery, New York

1953 - Group Show "Nine Women Painters", Bennington College, Bennington, Vermont

1957 - Galerie Palette, Zurich, Switzerland

1996 - Kunstmuseum Winterthur, Switzerland (1 June - 11 August)

1996 - Sonja Sekula (1918–1963): A Retrospective, Swiss Institute, New York, USA (12 September - 26 October)

2016 - "Sonja Sekula, Max Ernst, Jackson Pollock & Friends", Kunstmuseum Luzern, Switzerland

2017 - Sonja Sekula: A Survey, Peter Blum Gallery, New York