Mexico City at Dusk #1

Wiener had a colorful life. She studied with Grant Wood in Iowa before moving to Minneapolis for further education. In the 1950s she was one of the most prominent women exhibiting regularly in Minnesota and gaining a national reputation as a daring abstract painter. There was a lot of chauvinism, she told a reporter. I remember one time someone said, 'There are few women who ever make it.' And my friend said to him, 'Well! You know, there are few men who ever make it, too!' In 1961, she traveled to Mexico where she studied at the Instituto Allende and during that time made this view of Mexico City. In Wiener’s hands, the rooftops and structure of the buildings dissolve into pure luminous color soaked into the paper.