SOFIA IMBER (1925–2017)

Sofia Imber, a journalist, television presenter, and arts administrator who transformed an auto-parts garage into the Caracas Museum of Contemporary Art, died on February 19, writes Fabiola Sanchez of the Associated Press / Star-Tribune.

Imber was born in Soroca, Moldova, in the former Soviet Union. She immigrated to Venezuela in 1930 with her family and went on to graduate from the Central University of Venezuela. With her second husband, Carlos Rangel, she hosted the television program Buenos Dias from 1969 to 1993. She was famous for her no-holds-barred interviews with international leaders, artists, and writers, such as former US president Jimmy Carter, the Dalai Lama, and Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

In 1971, when Venezuelan officials were trying to find a place to exhibit art, Imber said to them, “If you give me a garage, I will turn it into a museum.” A few years later, Venezuela had its first institution dedicated to modern art, exhibiting works from Venezuelan artists in addition to artists of international renown, such as Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, and Fernando Botero. In 2001, she was fired from her job as the museum’s director, as she was a fierce critic of late president Hugo Chavez’s socialist government. “The president forgot or did not want to recognize the courage and the dedication of this wonderful woman,” the artist Jesus Soto said to the Associated Press before his death in 2005. Prior her departure from the museum, Imber created a program to showcase art in some of Venezuela’s most remote territories. In 1967, she became Latin America’s first woman to receive UNESCO’s Picasso Medal. She also received awards from France, Brazil, Colombia, Italy, and Spain, among other countries.