(San Pedro, Argentina, 1919 – París, France, 1982)
She studied painting at the School of Fine Arts of Buenos Aires. From 1948 onwards she lived in Paris. She devoted herself to engraving for a time and then began modelling, leaving painting for sculpture. A disciple of Zadkine, who also experienced the influence of Arp. From 1952 she worked on the series of her “Totems of Love” and her “Vegetal Liturgies” – sculptures resembling the trunks of an imaginary jungle. The vertical forms were followed by unfolding forms, symbolic representations.
«At the opposite extreme from the advocates of the dragged sculptures of the Paris School is Argentinian artist Penalba, whose predominantly vertical works come from Cubism and are dignified and powerful abstract totems». (H. H. Arnason).