“To my darling Nita”

Sisters side by side

The gouache by Irene Rice Pereira at the left is inscribed at the bottom in Pereira’s hand to “My darling Nita.” Dated 1965, six years before her death, Nita refers to Juanita (Rice) Guccione whose oil painting, Shapeshifter, dated circa 1939, appears at the right. Both paintings are exhibited at the Wendt Modern in the Fuller Building in Manhattan in a non-objective art survey.

Pereira was the older of three Rice sisters. She and Guccione (née Anita Rice) followed their younger sister, Dorothy, into art school. Dorothy died in  her early thirties. The figurative gouaches by Pereira were an essential aspect of her aesthetic discipline. She would rise before dawn each day and execute these large drawings with her eyes closed in a meditative state. It was the artist’s way of preparing for her day’s work in her studio at 121 West 15th Street in Chelsea, the studio where she painted her most important works. Across town Guccione would be painting at 209 and 215 East 19th Street. Guccione, however, also had several studios in both the West and East Villages before her 19th Street tenure.—DM