Amelia Pel
Cuban artistry is a contrasting ethnical blend of African, European and North American aesthetic design communicating the multi-ethnic demographic of Cuba. Cuban creatives developed European modernism and the 1920-1950 era saw an increase in Cuban vanguardism movements; these trends were known by a mixing of contemporary aesthetic genres. Some of the more celebrated 20th century Cuban artists were likely to come from the early 1900s (for example Amelia Pelez).
It’s been argued that the most notable art (of sorts) to come out of the island of Cuba was THAT photograph of Che Guevara (photo by Mr Alberto Korda) which went onto become maybe one of the most celebrated photographs of the past century.
The native Cuban art movement accumulated momentum following the opening of the art academy (San Alejandro) back in 1818, which was developed to live up to the European appreciation of the bourgeoisie population of Cuba. Towards the end of the 1800s, landscape paintings dominated the Cuban art movement and classicalism dominated as the main art genre.
However, the pioneering Cuban contemporary artist of the late 1920s had estranged the academic formulas of Cuba’s national art academy. In their genesis, many Cuban artists had resided in France, where they learned and assimilated the tenets of surrealism, cubism, and modernist primitivism. They returned to Cuba committed to ground-breaking artistic methods and were motivated to integrate this new artistic leaning with a Cuban influence. The vanguardia artists achieved global acknowledgement back in 2003 with the Modern Cuban Painting show at the MOMA in New York.
