Art OnCuba 17

The fact that three of the great Cuban painters who started their careers in the Havana of the late 1950s are, simultaneously, the object of tributes in the cities where each one of them left their mark, would appear today to be more than mere coincidence; however, to travel abroad having left inaugurated a curious exhibition of the work of Raúl Martínez, get to Miami and fid an excellent anthology of Rafael Soriano and in the meanwhile I get an email from Paris announcing that the French were paying a warm tribute to Joaquín Ferrer, certainly was. Of course, Art Oncuba could not overlook that these coincidences, whether the fruit of sheer chance or not, serve to remind us that, over and above fashion, abstraction in Cuban painting had many roads and many protagonists.

On the other hand, in a brief tour of the most recent Cuban art, we offer our readers an approach to current photography, bringing together two acclaimed artists of the 1990s with a young man who brings to the national artistic scene a new vision of the environment. We are doing the same with other manifestations in which artists from previous decades coexist with some of those who are more recently carving out their path with their proposals, on the island and in the rest of the cities where they are residing.

In this mixture of past, present and future, this number recalls figures forgotten by many and unknown by others, whose works may simply awaken the curiosity of those who for some time now have been increasingly approaching Cuban art of all times.

As on other occasions, we continue rescuing those who have been contributing for several years to giving visibility to Cuban artists through their work as gallery owners or from a sincere vocation as collectors.

Lastly, we leave on record and congratulate the National Prize for Visual Arts winner of the year we have just bid farewell to, which on this occasion was bestowed on an artist from the first generation of graduates from the National School of Art, beloved and remembered by all the Cuban artists disseminated throughout the planet.