1927 – 2020

Sergio was born on May 22, 1927 in Santiago, Chile. He lived in Chile, Brazil, England, and France and attended the Slade School of Fine Art. He moved to Paris to study printmaking at the renowned Atelier 17, where he met and fell in love with his future wife, artist, Adrienne Cullom. The two moved to New York City and worked together at Bob Blackburn’s Printmaking Workshop. After marrying, they had three daughters and settled in Mahopac, New York.

Sergio was an accomplished and prolific printmaker and painter. He was a contemporary artist and a master of intaglio and viscosity printing whose work was driven by a compulsion toward modernist form. After visiting Haida Gwaii, Canada he became fascinated with Haida art in which he saw a deeply spiritual and gloriously formalist view of life. This became and remained a powerful influence in his work. He was awarded a grant from the Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation and received numerous awards in his lifetime including the UNESCO Prize at the International Biennial of Prints in Cracow, Poland, first prize at the XII Biennale of Latin American Prints from Latin America and The Caribbean in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and Trustees Prize for Painting at the Art of the Northeast Exhibit at the Silvermine Guild in New Canaan, CT.

Gonzalez-Tornero was awarded a fellowship by the New York State Foundation for the Arts in 1987 and a grant from the Adolph and Ester Gottlieb Foundation in 1990. He is a member of the Society of American Graphic Artists, Boston Printmakers and the Philadelphia Print Club. His work has been included in numerous exhibitions internationally including the UNESCO Prize at the International Biennial of Prints in Cracow, Poland, first prize at the XII Biennale of Latin American Prints from Latin America and The Caribbean in San Juan, Puerto Rico. A retrospective exhibition of his prints was mounted in 1998 at the Antiguo Asilo de Beneficencia, in San Juan. Gonzalez-Tornero is included in numerous collections including the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum, the Brooklyn Museum, the New York Public Library, the Milwaukee Art Museum and the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art and the Victoria and Albert Museum.