Cuban art

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Cuban art has been known since the 16th century.

In the 16th century, painters and sculptors began arriving from Europe. They made decorations (including paintings and sculptures), in Cuban churches and public buildings. By the mid-1700s, native-born artists were painting in Cuba, in the European tradition of painting. [1] [2]

Yeyo Yeyo, José Nicolás de Escalera, ca. 1770. Collection of the National Museum of Fine Art, Havana.

Many works of art were left behind by José Nicolás de la Escalera (d. 1804). For many of those works, there is proof that he was the one who painted those.[1][3]

Vicente Escobar (d. 1834) was a mestizo, and he did portraits;[4] His paintings were popular with Cuba's elite (or people with wealth or political power).[4] He opened [the first, or] one of the first painting workshop/studios in Cuba. He later graduated from the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando in Madrid.[5]

Víctor Patricio de Landaluze (d. 1889) was a Spanish-born artist, and he was an early artist of the costumbrismo genre. He was opposed to Cuban independence, and that cost him some of his popularity with the public.[1][2][6]

After the Colonial Era[change | change source]

By the late 1920s [an Avant-garde movement,] the Vanguardia, had rejected convention [or some norms] of Cuba's national art academy. Most of the Vanguardia artists had been students at the national art academy. Many had lived in Paris (France), where they learned (more) about Surrealism, Cubism, and modernist Primitivism. Those genres (or styles) gave inspiration to the Vanguardia artists.[7]

Pioneer s (or the first to be part) of the movement included Eduardo Abela, Antonio Gattorno, Victor Manuel, Fidelio Ponce de León, and Carlos Enríquez Gómez.[8] Other famous artists of the original Vanguardia were Amelia Peláez, Jorge Arche, Marcelo Pogolotti, Aristides Fernandez, Rafael Blanco, Domingo Ravenet, Alberto Peña, and Lorenzo Romero Arciaga.[1]

The painting ["the tropical gypsy",] La Gitana Tropical (1929), has been called one of the defining pieces (or paintings) of Cuban Avant-garde art.[1][9] Victor Manuel painted it. During stays in Paris, he had been impressed by the works of Paul Cézanne and Paul Gauguin.[1][9] (The painting is in a museum in Havana, Cuba.)

Between 1934 and 1940, Cuba was searching for its cultural identity in its European and African roots. The landscape, flora, fauna, and lore of the island, as well as its peasants - the often neglected, but important part of Cuba's soul and economy - was shown, more and more, in its art.[10]

In 1938, the Second National Salon of Painting and Sculpture, showed art works. Some of the artists there, have been called part of a second generation of modern artists, including Cundo Bermudez, Mario Carreño, Rita Longa, Alfredo Lozano, Luis Martinez-Pedro, and René Portocarrero[1]

The painting The Jungle (1943) has been called a masterpiece (or a painting by a master) of Cuban art. The artist, Wifredo Lam, is not thought of, as being a part of the Vanguardia movement.[1][2][11][12] (The painting is in a museum in the United States.[13] It was bought in 1945.)

In 1944 in New York City (USA), the art exhibition "Modern Cuban Painters" was held at MoMA. That year Mario Carreño had a solo exhibition (or his own exhibition) at San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

In 1951 in Paris (France), an exhibition of modern Cuban art was shown at the Musée National d'Art Moderne.[1]

After the Cuban Revolution of 1959, some artists made a decision to leave Cuba. Because the creation of art, was sponsored (or paid for) by the Cuban government, implied censorship occurred, since artists wouldn't want to make art that was against the government that was financing (or paying for) the art.[14]

In the 1960s and 1970s conceptual art was introduced. Minimalism, Earth art, and Performance art was (sometimes) mixed with conceptual art[15]

In 1984 the first Havana Biennial was held. (There have been biennials as late as 2015 and 2019, and the one in 2021 was boycotted by hundreds[16] of artists [and many foreign spectators].[17][18]

When the aesthetic of Naïve art has been emulated (or copied) by a trained artist, then the result is sometimes called primitivism, pseudo-art,[19] or faux naïve art.[20] [The domino players] Juego de Domino, oil on canvas, 2008. The artist (José Rodríguez Fuster) was trained at Escuela Nacional de Instructores de Arte in Havana.

In 1997 in New York City (USA), the exhibition Naïve Art in Cuba, was held at Metropolitan Arts Center. It showed the art of fourteen Cuban artists of Naïve art, and art from eight members of the Grupo Bayate, an artists' collective (or group) from Mella, Santiago de Cuba. [21]

As of 2015, few artists of Naïve art have had works shown at art salons (or other exhibitions, such as) the biennial of Havana.[22]

Gallery[change | change source]

Related pages[change | change source]

References[change | change source]

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 Martinez, Juan A.; Cuban Art & National Identity: The Vanguardia Painters, 1927-1950; University Press of Florida, 1994; ISBN 0-8130-1306-2
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Poupeye, Veerle; Caribbean Art; Thames and Hudson Ltd., London, 1998; ISBN 0-500-20306-7
  3. ↑ Cernuda Arte: José Nicolás de la Escalera; http://www.cernudaarte.com/artists/jose-nicolas-de-la-escalera/ retvd 2 6 16
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Art Experts; Vicente Escobar y de Flores (1762-1834); http://www.artexpertswebsite.com/pages/artists/escobarydeflores.php Archived 2015-04-19 at the Wayback Machine; retvd 1 31 16
  5. ↑ Cernuda Arte: Vicente Escobar; http://www.cernudaarte.com/artists/vicente-escobar/; retvd 1 31 16
  6. ↑ Cernuda Arte: Víctor Patricio Landaluze http://www.cernudaarte.com/artists/victor-patricio-landaluze/; retvd 1 31 16
  7. ↑ Ades, Dawn. Art in Latin America: The Modern Era, 1820–1980. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989: 7.
  8. ↑ Eduardo Abela Archived July 21, 2006, at the Wayback Machine Cubanet
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 Cernuda Art: Victor Manuel Garcia; http://www.cernudaarte.com/artists/victor-manuel-garcia/ retvd 12 9 15
  10. ↑ Cruz-Taura, Graciella; Fuentes-Perez, Ileana; Pau-Llosa, Ricardo. Outside Cuba. New Jersey: Office of Hispanic Arts Mason Gross School of the Arts, 1988: 44.
  11. ↑ The Jungle (La Jungla). MoMA. Retrieved 17 July 2021
  12. ↑ Sims, Lowery Stokes; Wifredo Lam and the International Avant-Garde, 1923-1982; University of Texas Press, 2002; ISBN 0-292-77750-7
  13. ↑ https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/ap-art-history/later-europe-and-americas/modernity-ap/a/lam-the-jungle#:~:text=The%20Jungle%2C%20currently%20on%20display,nearly%20an%208%20foot%20square. Retrieved 18 July 2021
  14. ↑ Padura Fuentes, Leonardo. "Living and Creating in Cuba: Risks and Challenges". Reinventing the Revolution: A Contemporary Cuba Reader. Ed. Philip Brenner et al. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2008. 348–354. Print.
  15. ↑ Morgan, Ann Lee. "Conceptual Art". The Oxford Dictionary of American Art and Artists. Oxford: 2007. Oxford University Press.
  16. ↑ https://news.artnet.com/art-world-archives/havana-biennial-coco-fusco-2010311. Retrieved 2024-02-15
  17. ↑ https://ocula.com/magazine/features/havana-biennial-2019-constructing-the-possible/. Retrieved 18 July 2021
  18. ↑ https://www.biennialfoundation.org/2015/04/12th-havana-biennial-between-the-idea-and-experience-schedule-announced/. Retrieved 18 July 2021
  19. ↑ Risatti, Howard (15 September 2009). "Aesthetics and the Function/Nonfunction Dichotomy". A Theory of Craft: Function and Aesthetic Expression. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. p. 223. ISBN 978-0-8078-8907-7. OCLC 793525283.
  20. ↑ Levy, Silvano (2008). Lines of Thought: The Drawings of Desmond Morris. Kettlestone: Kettlestone Press. p. 138. ISBN 978-0-9560153-0-3. OCLC 377804527.
  21. ↑ Naïve Art from Cuba. New York, NY: Center for Cuban Studies. 1997.
  22. ↑ Mouial, Gérald. "Magic Art in Cuba: 51 Cuban Painters, Naïve, Ingenuous, Primitive, Popular, Spontaneous, Intuitive…" Ciudad de la Habana: Artecubano; National Council of the Visual Arts of Cuba. 2004: 180.


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