Published by El Museo del Barrio. Edited by Karen Marta. Foreword by Patrick Charpenel. Text by Domitille d’Orgeval. Interview by Hans Ulrich Obrist.
Published with KMEC Books.
Born in Puerto Rico, Tony Bechara (1942–2025) was a longtime resident of New York City, where he practiced abstract painting and served as Chairman of the Board of Directors of El Museo del Barrio for 15 years. Drawing inspiration from a range of sources, his singular artistic approach was grounded in an exploration of color theory across tile-like grids (composed of squares no more than a quarter inch high) to expand the possibilities of perception. This monograph spans Bechara's decades-long artistic career, collecting paintings, studies and mosaic works made between 1969 and 2020 that illustrate the development of his unique vision. Also included is an essay by art historian Domitille d’Orgeval, as well as an interview with the artist by curator Hans Ulrich Obrist.
Puerto Rico–born, New York–based artist Tony Bechara (born 1942) served as board president of El Museo del Barrio for 15 years, while also honing his own geometric abstraction process. Dividing his canvas into hundreds of quarter-inch squares, Bechara meticulously fills each space in with complementary colors. The resulting grid paintings thus evoke a variety of cultural influences: from Seurat’s pioneering pointillism to hard-edge abstraction, traditional weaving and 8-bit "pixel art" of the last half century. In keeping with Bechara’s richly chromatic oeuvre, this artist’s book is inspired by Bechara’s notes and color formulas that form the basis for his acrylic paintings. It features over 130 illustrations, with foldouts and multiple materials, as well as a glossary of key motifs that introduces Bechara’s personal artistic language to the public for the first time.
Tony Bechara: Annotations on Color Schemes