Cossette Zeno was born on April 29, 1930 in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. Her father, Arturo Rafael Zeno of Dominican nationality, and her mother, Olimpia Torres Machado of Puerto Rican nationality, remained in Santo Domingo until 1932 when they returned to Puerto Rico due to the political instability from Rafael Trujillo's regime. The family settled in Old San Juan with the paternal grandmother, María Kuinlam de Zeno, who lived on Fortaleza Street #16, then called Allen Street. Cossette grew up and was educated in Old San Juan. She attended the José Julián Acosta school and later graduated from Central High School in Santurce in 1948.

 

Her interest in art began at a very young age. Cossette identifies as a Puerto Rican and Caribbean artist. In 1950, Zeno entered the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus, where she met her professor and mentor Eugenio Fernández Granell, a Spaniard exiled in Puerto Rico due to the Spanish Civil War. Granell settled in Puerto Rico in 1950 and began teaching surrealism and modern art at the University. Cossette Zeno is one of his first and most outstanding students. At this stage, she created metaphysical works that explore space and the place of the human being in these contexts.  

 

Zeno was later awarded a scholarship for post graduate studies in Paris through a scholarship Granell managed. Granell wrote a letter of recommendation for Cossette addressed to his friend André Breton. The letter recommended her as a promising talent and encouraged Breton to allow her to join his surrealist group. Cossette arrived in Paris in September 1953 and remained there until December 1954. By the third day of being in Paris, she had made contact with Benjamin Péret, who spoke Spanish, and joined the meetings of Breton's surrealist group.

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A typical day in Zeno's life in Paris began early at 8:30 a.m. She enrolled in the École du Louvre art academy where she would take classes during the day. She returned home to paint and study, and took panoramic and cultural walks around the city. Meetings with the surrealist group were held at Café de la Place Blanche from 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.

 

“Breton and Péret almost always arrived earlier, and almost always had a visitor or two. We were nine to fifteen people, sometimes more. Breton led the conversation, introducing the visitor: poet, writer, painter, sculptor... all of them surrealists. As soon as I started speaking
more confidently, I started asking questions and answering questions and participating in
discussions. Sometimes I brought with me a drawing or small oil painting that they asked for. Political topics, films, exhibitions, concerts, theater, etc. were discussed; and very often, the future of surrealist expression in all its aspects. They talked about social, political, and
philosophical issues. Editorials, art and music reviews were read. We met five days a week. We didn't gather during vacations (August) or holidays. On one occasion, Breton invited me to his house and I met his wife and his daughter Aube.”  - Cossette Zeno

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After her studies in Paris, Zeno returned to the United States and began to explore different compositions. She began to experiment
with collage and color applications on canvas. The collage would become one of the
Zeno's favorite mediums as an artist.
Since the opening of her retrospective, Cossette Zeno: Anthology, held at the Caguas Art Museum (MUAC, 2015), many important things have happened in the artist's career. These achievements include the feature of her piece “Ni hablar del peluquín” (1952) in the  emblematic exhibition Surrealism Beyond Borders (2021 and 2022) held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (The MET) in New York and the Tate Gallery in London respectively.  Additionally, two of her pieces were acquired as a part of the permanent collection of the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture (ICP).

 

Zeno has continued to receive local and global press recognition for her pieces featured in important public and private collections. 

Recently, her work was featured in the exposition Surrealism and Us, held at The Modern Art Museum (The Modern) of Fort Worth, Texas (2024) as part of the international celebration of the centenary of Surrealism. In 2025, Zeno will form part of the new text on surrealism titled "Sun Dreams: Art Mirages in Latin America", published by the prestigious ACT house, based in Sao Paulo, Brazil and with essays by João Paulo Siqueira Lopes and Fernando Ticoulat. The book reunites the most emblematic and important surrealist Latin American artists. 

In recent years, the artist has taken drawing and mixed media as her favorite medium. Her
recent pieces embody one of the most important aspects of surrealism- psychic automatism. From this mental state, ideas flow obeying the creative instinct and the spontaneity of the moment, avoiding premeditated compositions. About Cossette Zeno and her recent work, Professor Nelson Rivera writes in his most recent book-

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“Zeno’s works delve on that great theme of Puerto Rican art that is nature, approached from a surrealist perspective that she handles with total mastery.” (1)

Cossette Zeno stands out as one of the most important surrealist artists of the Caribbean and the Americas. Over time, through her creativity and constant discovery, she finds inspiration in what she perceives and feels around her, in nature and especially the sea, and in her understanding of feminism and humanism.

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José Correa Vigier

Historian and Curator

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(1 )Nelson Rivera, "Dissidents and Dissidents: Puerto Rican Art in the 21st Century", San Juan: Editorial Isla Negra, (2023)

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