Casa Mella-Russo (CMR), one of the newer art galleries in Santo Domingo’s Colonial City, is celebrating its third anniversary with the exhibition “In Love and Art.” The exhibition is a collaboration between two renowned artists and spouses, Frenchwoman Beatrice Escoffier and Dominican modernist painter José García Cordero. The exhibition will be open through April 2025.
“It is an honor to inaugurate this exhibition by two great artists and human beings. Beatrice and José delight us with their works and inspire us with their life story, a testament to how love and complicity transcend time and materialize in art. This exhibition celebrates life, creativity, and the human connections that unite us,” said Altagracia Mella Russo, director of CMR.
The joint exhibition brings together pieces by these renowned artists, who met in the Dominican Republic in 1982 and married a year later. They have shared over 40 years of life and artistic collaboration in their studios. The works, spanning from 1985 to 2024, reflect the artists’ individual talents and their deep personal bond.
Beatrice Escoffier, a French sculptor with over 30 years of experience working with bronze, has exhibited in Europe and the Caribbean, standing out for her ability to convey emotions through three-dimensionality.
Meanwhile, José García Cordero, a Dominican painter born in Santiago de los Caballeros and based in Paris, is a leading figure in contemporary art, awarded the Medal of Merit from the French Senate and the National Visual Arts Award of the Dominican Republic in 2023.
Casa Mella Ruso is located at the corner of Duarte and Arzobispo Nouel streets in Santo Domingo’s Colonial City. It is a cultural project developed from the restoration of a 1538 colonial house. A rich art collection is open to the public free of charge. The gallery-museum features works by great Dominican masters such as Yoryi Morel, Celeste Woss y Gil, Iván Tovar, Elsa Núñez, Guillo Pérez, and Scherezade García, as well as pieces by international artists like Josep Gausachs, José Vela Zanetti, and André Breton.
Two exhibition halls allow the public to immerse themselves in a journey through the identity, the magical-religious, and the artistic. One of these halls, dedicated to Yolanda Russo Gómez, the director’s mother, includes a majestic ceramic mural by Said Musa, inviting the viewer to experience art through sight and touch.
Casa Mella Russo is open free of charge Tuesday to Saturday from 10am to 5pm at Calle Duarte 99 corner Arzobispo Nouel in the Colonial City. Tel 809 792-7701.
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Casa Mella Russo
3 December 2024