Maria Helena de Silva

Maria Helena Vieira da Silva (1908–1992) was born in Lisbon and began studying drawing and painting at age 11. She moved to Paris at 19, where she studied with Fernand Léger, Antoine Bourdelle, and Stanley William Hayter. In 1930, she married painter Árpád Szenes and spent time in Brazil during WWII before settling in Paris. By the late 1950s, she gained international recognition for her complex compositions influenced by Cézanne and Cubism. In 1961, she won a painting prize at the São Paulo Biennial. In 1966, Vieira da Silva became the first woman to receive the Grand Prix Nationale des Arts and was named a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor in 1979. In 1988, major retrospectives were held in Lisbon and Paris to mark her 80th birthday.