Cuban Art: from the San Alejandro to Modernism in the 20th Century
Cuban artistry is a contrasting multi-ethnic blending of African, European and North American aesthetic design showing the multiethnic demographic of the island. Artists from Cuba took onboard European modernism and the 1920-1940 era witnessed a growth in Cuban vanguardism movements; these movements were characterized by a diversity of modern esthetic genres. Some of the more celebrated 20th century Cuban artists were likely to hail from the earlier part of the 1900s (e.g. Amelia Pelez).
Perhaps the most famous artwork (of sorts) to come out of the island of Cuba was THAT picture of a certain Che Guevara (photograph by Mr Alberto Korda) which went onto become maybe one of the most distinctive photos of the 20th century.
The native Cuban artist movement gained momentum following the opening of the the art academy (San Alejandro) back in 1818, which was constructed to live up to the European penchant of the bourgeoisie population of Cuba. Towards the end of the 1800s, landscapes were very popular within Cuban art and classicism dominated as the main art style.
Yet, the pioneering Cuban contemporary artists of the late 1920s had disapproved the theoretical norms of Cuba’s national art academy. In their formative years, numerous Cuban artists had lived in France, where they studied and assimilated the fundamentals of cubism, surrealism and modernist primitivism. Once back in Cuba, they became committed to new artistic methods and were motivated to integrate this new aesthetic tendency with a Cuban twist. The pioneering Cuban artists attained world acclaim in 2003 with the Modern Cuban Painting show at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. These kinds of styles are now fashionable via canvas artwork decorated on walls worldwide.
