| Introduction Cuban art is a rich cultural blend of African, European and North American visual design reflecting the diverse demographic of the island. Cuban artists embraced European modernism and the early part of the 20th century saw a growth in Cuban vanguardism movements, these movements were characterized by a mixture of modern artistic genres. Some of the more celebrated 20th century Cuban artists include Amelia Peláez (1896-1968), best known for a series of mural projects and painter Wifredo Lam (1902-1982) who created a highly personal version of modern primitivism. Just two decades ago, the maximum that a Cuban artwork could fetch in the market was $25,000 (with the exception of works from Wilfredo Lam). Today this reality has changed. As the demand from affluent Cuban-Americans in Miami for modern Cuban paintings grew, the value of Cuban artworks saw a dramatic rise. In 1993 a work by Mariano Rodriguez (a Cuban painter whose works can be found in America's best museums) was sold for $299,000. In 1988, a Mario Carreño was sold for $121,000. In May 1990, the same painting went for $286,000. Another recent success story has been Tomas Sanchez, a mid-career Cuban whose prices have escalated sharply. In a few years prices for his art have gone from around $10,000 up to a record of $310,000. The market for Cuban art has come of age, as evidenced by its impetus. Today museums and art galleries in Paris, New York and Tokyo are showing an all-time high interest in artworks from Cuban painters. As a result, a growing number of Cuban artists are finding a booming market for their work. San Alejandro Academy of Fine Arts Cuban painting began in the late 1700's with such artists as José Nicolás de la Escalera and Vicente Escobar. But it was only in the 19th century, when the San Alejandro Academy was founded, that Cuban painting began to flourish. San Alejandro is the most Ancient Plastic Arts Academy in Hispano-America. It was founded in January 11, 1818 and has been headed by prestigious artists, not only Cuban but also from overseas. The Fine Arts Academy's first director was French painter Juan Bautiste Vermay. From its beginnings the academy was an incubator for Cuba's most famous artists. Some of the most relevant personalities from Cuban culture studied in San Alejandro, including Jose Marti, Wifredo Lam, Amelia Pelaez, Rene Portocarrero, Víctor Manuel, Mario Carreño, Jose Maria Mijares, Fidelio Ponce de León, Jorge Arche, Eduardo Abela, Raúl Martínez, Servando Cabrera Moreno, Juan Moreira, Tomas Sanchez, Flora Fong, Roberto Fabelo, Ravenet, Juan José Sicre, Rita Longa, Agustín Cárdenas and Pedro Alvarez Castello. 20th Century The commercialization of art did not begin until after 1916, with the Salón de Bellas Artes. Previously there were no real exhibition rooms available. Only the Academy itself and exhibitions which were organized in the Pabellón de Educación in the Quinta de Molinos existed as channels of distribution. Cultural institutions such as the Atheneum and the Academy for Art and Literature (1910) developed with private support. The Asociación de Pintores y Escultores cubanos was founded to represent the work of Cuban artists and to organize the annual Salón de Bellas Artes. At the beginning of the twenties a new generation of intellectuals surfaced in the conflict-ridden political and social panorama. The magazine Avances (1927) was the fundamental place to accommodate new ideas and artistic debate. Later it was to be the publications Verbum (1930), Espuela de Plata (1940) and Orígenes (in the fifties). In 1937 forward-thinking artists founded the Estudio Libre de Pintura y Escultura, promoting such fields of art as wood carving and mural painting which had been neglected by the Academy, and the "First Salon of Modern Art" was inaugurated. As in any avant- garde movement, the artists tried to transform society through culture. Those of this period who were to become masters of modern Cuban art also drew from Mexican mural painting. Cuban painters Wifredo Lam Wifredo Óscar de la Concepción Lam y Castilla (December 2, 1902, Sagua La Grande, Villa Clara Province—September 11, 1982, Paris), better known as Wifredo Lam, was a Cuban artist. He was predominantly a painter but he also worked with sculpture and ceramics. He was of mixed ancestry: his father was Chinese and his mother was of African, Spanish and local Creole descent. He showed some artistic talent as a young man so, when he went to Havana to study law, he also studied painting at the Academy of San Alejandro. In 1923, he went to Madrid in order to further his art studies. There he married Eva Piriz in 1929 but both she and their young son died in 1931 of tuberculosis. He was in Madrid during the Spanish Civil War, during which he sided with the Republic. In 1937, Lam went to Paris and became close friends with Pablo Picasso. It was through Picasso that he met many of the leading artists in Paris at the time. With the threat of German invasion in World War II, he left Paris in 1940 and went to Marseille. There, through Varian Fry, he became friends with André Breton and formed close ties with the Surrealist movement. Lam's, Symbiosis, Gouache on paper, mounted on canvas, 1943. Jorge Reyes Estate.In 1941, he returned to Cuba and stayed there until 1946. He married Helena Holzer in 1944. He then lived in various places including Paris, New York and Havana. They were divorced in 1950. In 1960, he married Lou Laurin with whom he had three children. His masterpiece is considered to be La Jungla ("The Jungle", 1943). Amelia Peláez Amelia was born in 1896 at Yaguajay, in the former Cuban province of Las Villas (now Villa Clara). In 1915, her family moved to Havana, to the La Víbora district, and this gave her the opportunity to enter the San Alejandro Art School at the rather late age of 20 years (students at this academy usually start at 12-13 years of age). She was among Leopoldo Romañach's favourite students. By 1924, she exposed her paintings for the first time, along with another Cuban female painter, María Pepa Lamarque. She transferd to Europe in 1927, and established herself in Paris, although she paid short visits to Spain, Italy and other countries. In Paris, she took drawing courses at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière, and later entered the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, and the École du Louvre. In 1931, she started studying with female Russian painter Alexandra Exter. The Zak Gallery hosted her paintings in 1933, and next year she returned to Cuba. She received a prize in the National Exposition of Painters and Sculptors in 1938, and collaborated with several art magazines in Cuba, such as Orígenes, Nadie Parescia and Espuela de Plata. In 1950, she opened a workshop at San Antonio de los Baños, a small city near Havana, where she dedicated herself, until 1962, to her favourite pastime: pottery. She sent her paintings to the São Paulo Art Biennial in 1951 and 1957, and participated in 1952's Venice Biennale. In 1958 she was a guest of honour and integrated the International Jury of the first Inter-American Paints and Drawing Biennale [1]. Aside from painting and pottery, she dedicated time to murals, located mainly at different schools in Cuba. Her most important works of this type are a 65 foot tall ceramic mural at the Cuban Ministry of Internal Affairs (1953) and the facade of the Havana Hilton hotel in 1957 (now Habana Libre). She died in Havana in 1968. Carlos Enríquez Gómez Carlos Enríquez Gómez (August 3, 1900 - May 2, 1957), was a Cuban painter, illustrator and writer of the Vanguardia movement (the Cuban Avant-garde). Along with Víctor Manuel, Amelia Peláez, Fidelio Ponce and Antonio Gattorno, and other masters of this period, he was very involved in one of the most fertile moments in Cuban culture. Considered by critics to be one of the best, and most original, Cuban artists during the 20th century. Carlos Enriquez strived to develop a style that, while fueled by surrealism and modernism, aimed to be genuinely Cuban and take inspiration in Cuba's landscapes, culture, social problems and way of living. He was also considered a rebel, and was often criticized for the allegedly explicit nature of his nudes, and for his bohemian life-style. Born in Zulueta, in the former Cuban province of Las Villas, on August 3, 1900 to a wealthy Cuban family, Carlos Enriquez received little academic training, so his art is considered to be largely autodidact. At a young age he transfers to Havana to complete his bachellor studies, and on 1920 his parents send him to Philadelphia, where he studied Commerce until 1924. Now is when, at his insistence, he's permitted to study Painting at the Pennsylvania Academy, where he took a short summer course, which he didn't complete due to differences with his professors, and these are the only painting studies he ever took. He returned home the following year, accompanied by his future first wife, north-american paintress Alice Neel. Soon after his return, he started painting professionally, while working as an accountant at the Lonja del Comercio (Havana's Stock Exchange). On 1925 he participates in his first exposition, and on 1927 two of his nudes where retired from the Exposition of New Arts of Havana after being considered "exagerately realistic" [1]. 1927, however, marks the year where the Cuban Vanguardia movement made its first steps, mainly thanks to this exposition, and the artists that participated in it and would later become the higher exponents of the movement. The episode convinced Enriquez to transfer back to the United States. After breaking up with Alice Neel, he returns to Cuba on 1930 with their daughter Isabetta. That same year, another of his expositions is aborted due to the allegedly explicit content of his paintings. He again leaves Cuba, this time for Europe, mainly Spain and France, where he continued his painting career and got in touch with impressionism and surrealism, currents that will radically influence his work. Some of his best works were produced in this period: Bacteriological Spring and Virgen del Cobre (which is the patron saint of Cuba). He returned to Cuba on 1934, and started a new pictorial style, which would become his trademark. He named it Romancero Guajiro (countryman's romance), a modernist approach to the stories and colors of the Cuban countryside. His painting Rey de los Campos de Cuba (King of the Cuban Fields) will receive first prize in 1935's National Exposition of Painters and Sculptors. Raise to fame and death Near 1939, he bought a small bungalow in the Arroyo Naranjo area of Havana, which he baptized El Hurón Azúl (the Blue Ferret). This will remain his home for the rest of his life. Here he paints one of his most famous works: El Rapto de las Mulatas (the Rape of the Mulatto Women). A transposition of the Rape of the Sabine Women to the Cuban fields, it is said that Enriquez had a horse brought to is workshop, tied Sara Cheméndez (his female model at the time) to the horse and had the animal lashed, in order to have a more realistic scene for the painting [2]. The same year, he was again awarded a prize in the National Exposition for this painting, and published his first novel, Tilín García. In the 40s, he writes two more novels (La Vuelta de Chencho and La Feria de Guaicanama, which will be published posthumously on 1960), illustrates books, holds conferences and expositions in several countries, writes articles for different magazines, and continues to paint, getting again a prize in 1946's National Exposition, for his painting La Arlequina. His life was marked by alcoholism. During the 50s his health sensibly weakened. He suffered several problems with broken bones, allegedly caused by his unregulated way of living, and is said to have had severe economical problems, for the same reasons. He died on May 2, 1957, while painting in his study. That same day, a personal exposition was to be inaugurated (it was of course delayed a month after news of his death). His house in Havana is now a small museum with about 140 paintings by Enriquez, and a number of sketches and writings. The house also acts as the meeting center for a small organization of young Cuban artists, named Hurón Azúl. Style Enriquez' signature visual language was mainly composed by fluid lines, overlapping color forms, transparencies and dynamic figure compositions. His works usually aimed at depicting the Cuban countryside's history, myths and folklore. Poor peasants, bandits, sensual women, restless horses, and landscapes of palm trees and rolling hills were his common subjects. He also painted portraits and self-portraits, a large number of nudes and a handful of still lifes. He described his work in the following manner: "My work is in a constant state of evolution towards the interpretation of images produced between vigilance and sleep, Nevertheless, I am not a surrealist. Currently, I am interested in interpreting the sensibility of a Cuban, American or continental atmosphere but removed from the methods of the European schools. To do otherwise would be like trying to resolve that which is ours with foreign formulas, for oriental art is as distant from my sensibility (though it may move me) as is the art of Picasso." Enriquez was also an accomplished writer and illustrator. He published 3 books and a number of essays and articles. He also provided the illustration artwork for books by Nicolás Guillén and Alejo Carpentier, two famous Cuban writers that were friends of the painter and regularly visited his workshop. Víctor Manuel García Valdés Víctor Manuel García Valdés (1897-1969) was a well known Cuban painter of the Avant-garde movement. Biography Born in Havana, at age 6 he already showed a precocious attitude for drawing. At age 12, he started studying arts at San Alejandro Art School, the most recognized art school in Cuba. When he was 14, he started to act as unofficial professor of elementary drawing classes [1]. He studied with Leopoldo Romañach, another famous Cuban painter, and by age 19 his talent started to become evident. Nevertheless, he performed his first personal exhibition as late as 1924 (when he was 26 years old). In 1925, he travels abroad, visiting France. It is in Montparnasse that a group of French artists advised him to sign his paintings only as Víctor Manuel (until that moment, he used his entire name and surname). He returns home in 1927, and participates in an exhibition at the Painters and Sculptors Association of Havana, that is considered one of the starting points of Cuban modern painting era. In this time, he dedicated himself, for almost two years, to train other Cuban painters free of charge. Afterwards, he returns to Europe, visiting Spain and Belgium, returning to Cuba again in 1929. It is in this year that he creates his most famous painting: La Gitana Tropical ("The Tropical Gipsy"), considered by critics to be one of the defining pieces of Cuban Avant-garde. He obtains a first prize in 1935, in an art exhibition at Havana's Lyceum, and continues exhibiting his works in Cuba and abroad. He died on 1969, in Havana. Style Víctor Manuel's style was not monolithic, but evolved greatly, during his lifetime. His first paintings show a tendency to mix European school with a primitive style, such as La Gitana Tropical (1929). In the 1940s and 1950s, he adopted a more stylized look that became distinctive of his work. During the last years of his life, his style became almost abstract, and his portraits were almost cubist. He was very inconsistent in signing his work. He ranged from a simple "VICTOR MANUEL" capitalized signature, to fluid and complicated script, to not signing his paintings at all, and he even used a pseudonym in a period of his life [2]. His subjects were the constant point of his work. He was eminently a portraitist of female faces, as well as painter of landscapes, both rural and urban. (To be continued) Please excuse us while this page is under construction. www.DamienCruz.com |