A leading figure of mid-century Venezuelan abstraction, Gego (1912–1994) radically engaged the properties of line and space through her work in sculpture, drawing, and collage. Her definitive Reticulárea series (begun in 1969) brings together the intuition of expressionism and the order of the Constructivist grid in suspended three-dimensional constellations of metal wire. Subtly contoured by light and the shifting environment, the works have the effect of immaterial volumes, constructed by shadow as much as solid form.

Born Gertrud Goldschmidt in Hamburg, Germany, Gego studied engineering and architecture at the Technical School of Stuttgart (1938). In 1939, she fled Nazi Germany and immigrated to Caracas, Venezuela. A contemporary of Kinetic artists Jesús Rafael Soto and Alejandro Otero, she arrived at her art practice when she was 41. In 1965, her work featured in the landmark exhibition The Responsive Eye at the Museum of Modern Art, New York; and in 1969 her Reticulárea debuted at the Museo de Bellas Artes Caracas. Her subsequent series, Chorros (1970–71)—cascading clusters of linked metal rods—was presented in her first solo exhibition at Betty Parsons Gallery, New York (1971). In 1977, her series Dibujos sin papel (1976–84) was shown at her first major museum retrospective at the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Caracas. The works in her final series, Tejeduras (1988–91), comprise found paper woven to recall textile crafts she learned in childhood.

Major traveling exhibitions and retrospectives dedicated to the artist have been organized by such institutions as Museo de Bellas Artes, Caracas (2000); Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (2005); Museu de Arte Contemporânea de Serralves, Porto (2006); Hamburger Kunsthalle (2013); Kunstmuseum Stuttgart (2022); and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, and Guggenheim Bilbao (2023–24), traveling from Museu de Arte de São Paulo and Museo Jumex, Mexico City. In 2005, Gego’s writings (Sabiduras) were translated and published for the first time. Her work belongs to the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Art Institute of Chicago; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Caracas; Museo de Bellas Artes, Caracas; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Guggenheim Bilbao; and the Tate, London, among many others.