Ariadne Pascual Wright

Ariadne Pascual Wright (1933-) has had an active and unusual life. It began with a difficult childhood in a world of dictators. She was born in Mussolini's Rome. Her mother was from Hitler's Germany, and her grandmother later died at Auschwitz. Her father, artist Manolo Pascual, moved the family to his native Spain, where its Civil War developed and Franco became triumphant. At age 5, Ariadne was sent with other Spanish children to Stalin's Soviet Union for safety. Nine years later, she rejoined her exiled father in Trujillo's Dominican Republic.

Five years after that, she emigrated to Manhattan, where she married an artist from Louisana. After having seven children, they lived in Mexico, where the marriage eventually dissolved. She later married Palmer Wright, an educator in Austin, Texas.

Her memories of the Russian years were published in Dorothy Legarreta's "The Guernica Generation" (Reno: The University of Nevada Press, 1984), pp. 266-71. A more complete story of her life concludes the book that she co-edited with artist Fernando Ureņa Rib, "A Spanish Sculptor in Exile: The Art and Life of Manolo Pascual" (Austin: Artmaster Publishing , 2011), pp. 110-129.