Carmen,painter, new kid on the art block, turns 100

Carmen Herrera, who turns 100 on Sunday (31 May), is in demand. The Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, which recently opened its new home in the Meatpacking district, is due to open a show autumn next year dedicated to the Cuban-born artist. The 50-piece exhibition will include works spanning more than four decades, beginning with early abstractions she made in Paris in the years after World War II. Her centennial continues apace with a solo presentation of Herrera's work at the Frieze Masters fair in London this autumn with Lisson Gallery. Meanwhile, the film-maker Alison Klayman has produced a documentary, The 100 Years Show, focusing on Herrera’s practice. “At midday most days [Carmen] treats herself to a scotch. Then she returns to her work. Her canvases are radiant and disciplined, straight lines and shapes in just two colours,” says a press statement for the film. Herrera is evidently tickled by the long overdue attention, telling The New York Times: “There’s a saying that you wait for the bus and it will come. I waited almost 100 years!”