Ides Kihlen was born on July 10 of 1917 in the Province of Santa Fe. Her childhood was spent on the banks of the Parana River in the Provinces of Corrientes and the Chaco. Painting was a constant companion in Ides¿ life, music the other passion that accompanied her since youth. After moving to Buenos Aires, she enrolled at the National School of Decorative Arts at an early age, giving rein to a vocation that she still actively pursues at eighty-four. On looking back over a lifetime of painting and observing the sense of continuity in the past thirty years, most noteworthy of all is the abrupt shift from figuration to abstraction in 1980. Not until she was past her sixtieth birthday did she discover a personal visual language and develop her own style. Until that transformation, Ides Kihlen painted works of an academic tenor with patience and dedication. Pío Collivadino, director of the School of Decorative Arts, after accepting her as a student, discovered her enthusiasm and her vocation. She was Vicente Puig¿s favorite student for more than a decade. She then continued her formation at other artists¿ studios: at Emilio Pettoruti¿s, with André Lhote in Paris. She also worked under the aegis of Battle Planas, who was highly influential in her work. She studied art history and visited museums around the world. Nothing, however, could interrupt her own deliberate rhythm. Her work developed independently of the trends in art in Buenos Aires at the time. The process was an eloquent expression of her personality. Ides Kihlen decided, before anything else, to be true to her own internal pace. For long stretches of time, she was more interested in the production of art than in obtaining results. This attitude generated two consequences. The first was that she did not consider herself to be a professional artist. She never attempted to forge a career as an artist. She simply was an artist, and that was enough for her. The second result was a consequence of the first. She destroyed much of her work and, as can be expected, never bothered to title or date her paintings. The witnesses to this process were her professors, her companions in the different studios, artist Adolfo Nigro, to whom she showed her early abstract work in the 1980s, and, of course, her two daughters and her granddaughter. Exhibitions After working for more than seventy years, her works are exhibited in: - Arte Ba 2000, ¿Galería Arroyo¿ - Expo Anticuaria 2000, individual show. - Expo Córdoba 2000, individual show. - IX Salão de Arte e Antiguidades, São Pablo, Brasil, 17/8/2002, individual show. - IX Salão de Arte e Antiguidades, São Pablo, Brasil, 17/8/2002: Presentation of Mercedes Casanegra¿s book, Ides Kihlen. - Museo Nacional de Arte Decorativo, 11th October to 3rd November 2002, individual show and presentation of Mercedes Casanegra¿s book, Ides Kihlen. - Galería Andrada, Buenos Aires, individual show, 12th October to 12th November 2002. - Arte BA 2003, individual show, GM Espacio de Arte, de 14 - 22 june, 2003 - X Salão de Arte e Antiguidades, São Pablo, Brasil, August 2003il, August 20033