Delia Cancela was born in Buenos Aires. She studies at the Higher School of Fine Arts. She lived in Buenos Aires until 1967, the year in which she traveled to Paris with a scholarship awarded by the French government. From 1969 to 1970 she lived and worked in New York. From 1970 to 1975 she lived and worked in London; From 1975 to 1999 she lived in Paris. She currently lives in Buenos Aires and Paris.

Since her beginnings in the avant-garde of the 60s at the Di Tella Institute, she introduces the language of fashion into art, until it becomes a central element of her work. In 1967, together with Pablo Mesejean, she received the Braque Prize, a scholarship awarded by the French government. Starting in the 1970s, she created images for the cover of English Vogue and her work is documented in art and fashion books respectively. In 1971 she created a clothing brand Pablo and Delia. Delia Cancela reviews the woman’s total journey.

She dedicates herself entirely to fashion and years later she manages to reconcile it with painting. One of the fundamental signs of her is her hairstyle in her paintings: the bristly and raised hair, the long hair that reaches to the ground, which to this day are present in her works.

The erotic journey through the world of women is an essential element in the works of Delia Cancela. Delia Cancela’s work can be summarized in: femininity.

In 2000 she was nominated for the Jorge Romero Brest Prize (award for artistic career), awarded by the Argentine Association of Art Critics.

In 2001 she received the Directorio Award for Artistic Lifetime Achievement from the National Endowment for the Arts and a tribute at the Judith Clark Gallery in London for her career in that city.