Page 32 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - Cuba

30  INTRODUCING CUBA

Painting in Cuba

The history of Cuban painting can be divided into three
basic stages. The first began in 1818 with the foundation of
the San Alejandro Fine Arts Academy, run by Jean-Baptiste
Vermay, a French Neo-Classical painter. The second began
over a century later, in the 1930s, when, thanks to great
artists such as Wifredo Lam, René Portocarrero and Amelia
Peláez, a movement influenced by the European avant-
garde created a universally comprehensible idiom that
expressed the unique essence of Cuban identity. Thirdly,
after 1959, as part of a programme of art education that Víctor Manuel García, one of
promoted avant-garde artists, the National School of Art the fathers of modern Cuban
and the Institute for Advanced Art Studies were founded. art, created the archetypal
Cuban painting has always brimmed with vitality and Gitana Tropical (1929).
painters of recent generations have achieved international
recognition, helped by shows like the Havana Biennial.

Wifredo Lam (1902–82),
lived for a while in
Europe and worked with
Pablo Picasso in Paris.
He developed a new
pictorial language that
went beyond national
boundaries. He painted
extraordinary pictures
such as La Jungla (The
Jungle), now in the
Museum of Modern Art,
New York, La Silla (see p97),
and The Third World
(1966), seen here, which
cast a dramatic light
on the elements in
Cuban religions.
Amelia Peláez (1897–1968) blended still life motifs with
the decorative elements in Cuban colonial architecture
such as stained glass and columns, as seen here in
Interior with Columns (1951).

René Portocarrero
(1912–86) expressed the
essence of Cuba through a
Baroque-like vision of the
city, painting domestic
interiors and figures
of women, as in Interno
del Cerro (1943). He made
use of bold colour and
was influenced by the
European avant-garde and
Mexican mural painting.

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