Cuban Painting (XX century, the first half)

The first quarter of the twentieth century did not bring any essential changes in painting. On May 20, 1902 the republic was born. A single important figure, that of the satirical artist Rafael Blanco, appeared on the stagnant art scene of the first decades of the republic. A trip to Europe in 1925 by Victor Manuel Garcia ought to have resulted in a final rupture with Academy, but that happened only two years later, in 1927, when the First Exhibition of New Art was held by the Association of Artists and Sculptors from May 7 to 31, 1927. The various European art trends of the early twentieth century that emerged out of the struggle with traditional art (whose mainstay in Cuba was the Academy) had finally reached our shores. The list of artists represented at the exhibition is imposing: Eduardo Abela, Rafael Blanco, Maria Capdevila, Gabriel Castaňo, Carlos Enriquez, Victor Manuel Garcia, Antonio Gattorno, Maria Josefa Lamarque, José Hurtado de Mendoza, Luis López Méndez, Ramón Loy, Alice Neel, Amelia Peláez, Rebeca Pink de Rosado Avila, Marcello Pogolotti,, Domingo Ravenet, Lorenzo Romero Arciaga, Alberto Sigura and Adia M. Yunkers. This is a rather varied array – some are significant artists, some insignificant, several periodically returned to the traditions of academic painting, several are foreigners whose creative outlooks were akin to those of their Cuban colleagues.

1) MARCELO POGOLOTTI