Magdalena Suarez Frimkess (b. 1929 in Caracas, Venezuela) lives and works in Venice, California. In the 1940s, she studied painting at Artes Plasticas, Caracas, Venezuela, moving in 1949 to study sculpture at the Catholic University in Santiago, Chile. In 1963, Suarez Frimkess was awarded a fellowship to study ceramics at the Clay Art Center in Port Chester, NY, where she met her partner and long-time collaborator, Michael Frimkess. While their collaborative work has achieved acclaim, her first solo exhibition was not held until 2013, at 84 years-old. Since that debut, she has been undoubtedly known for her unique hand-painted ceramics, recognized for their unique flare in the candid capturing of pop culture iconography, ancient histories, mythologies and intimate memory.
She was recently the subject of her career retrospective at LACMA (Los Angeles) and her work is currently FEATURED in the exhibition Transmissions: Selections from the Marciano Collection. She was included in the recent El Museo del Barrio Triennial (New York) Flow States that opened October 2024. In September of 2024, Suarez Frimkess opened a major two-floor solo exhibition at Kaufmann Repetto in New York. In recent years she has shown at White Columns, New York, Kaufmann Repetto in New York and Milan, and South Willard, Los Angeles. Her work was included in Made in LA, the Hammer Museum Biennial, Los Angeles (2014), as well as in group exhibitions at the Marciano Art Foundation, Los Angeles (2024), MAK Center, Schindler House, Los Angeles (2017), and Nouveau Musée National de Monaco, Monaco (2021).
Suarez Frimkess’ work is held in the collections of the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens, San Marino; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco; Museum of Arts and Design, New York; among others.
the world is my menu, 2022, solo show at kaufmann repetto new york
Magdalena Suarez Frimkess, 2017, solo show at kaufmann repetto New York
Magdalena Suarez Frimkess, 2016, solo show at kaufmann repetto Milan
Magdalena Suarez Frimkess (b. 1929, Caracas) Lives and works in Venice Beach.
Selected solo exhibitions
2024
noW girls allowed, kaufmann repetto, New York
the finest disregard, Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Los Angeles
2022
The World is my menu, kaufmann repetto, new york
Conversations with Magdalena: The Ceramic Art of Magdalena Suarez Frimkess and Art Division Students, Art Division, Los Angeles
2019
Magdalena Suarez Frimkess | 90, South Willard, Los Angeles
2018
Hand Built Ceramics 1958-2018, with Michael Frimkess, South Willard, Los Angeles
Magdalena Suarez Frimkess | New Work, South Willard, Los Angeles
2017
Magdalena Suarez Frimkess, kaufmann repetto, New York
2016
Magdalena Suarez Frimkess, kaufmann repetto, Milano
2015
Magdalena Suarez Frimkess | New Works, South Willard, Los Angeles
2014
Magdalena Suarez Frimkess, White Columns, New York
Magdalena Suarez Frimkess, South Willard, Los Angeles
Selected group exhibitions
2025
Untitled Exhibition (for Jenni), Gordon Robinchaux, New York
2024
Flow States, la triennal 2024, El Museo del Barrio, new york
Transmission: Selections from the Marciano Collection, Marciano Foundation, Los Angeles
2023
Funk You Too!: Contemporary Ceramics and the Legacy of Funk Art, Museum of Arts and Design, New York
2021
Clay Pop, Deitch Projects, New York
2020
Artifices instables, Stories of ceramics, Nouveau Musée National de Monaco, Monaco
Vent’anni – Twenty Years, 20th anniversary exhibition, kaufmann repetto, Milan
2019
Siobhan Liddell: Nobody’s World, Gordon Robichaux, New York
2017
How to Read El Pato Pascual: Disney’s Latin America and Latin America’s Disney, MAK Center, Sindler House, Los Angeles
2016
Magdalena Suarez Frimkess & Ben Russell, Michael Jon & Alan, Miami
2015
The Avant-Garde Won’T Give Up: Cobra And Its Legacy, Blum & Poe, Los Angeles
Magdalena Suarez Frimkess, Kelly Marie Conder, Bella Foster, South Willard, Los Angeles
Looking Back / The 9th White Columns Annual, selected by Cleopatra’s, White Columns, New York
2014
Selected By…, Limoncello, London
Another Cats Show, 356 Mission, Los Angeles
Made In L.A. 2014, UCLA Hammer Museum, Los Angeles
2013
Grapevine, David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles
The Cat Show, White Columns, New York
Why is Everything the Same?, Shoot The Lobster, New York
2012
Michael and Magdalena Suarez Frimkess, South Willard, Los Angeles New Work/ Vintage, Lacoste Gallery, Concord
2011
Contemporary Ceramics, Danese, New York
1988
Comic Iconoclasm, Cornerhouse, Manchester
Selected public collections
The New York times style Magazine, 2014
Magdalena Suarez Frimkess: The Finest Disregard, 2024
DelMonico Books and Los Angeles County Museum of Art
