A Look at Contemporary Artists in the 21st Century

11.16.09 |

Cuban art is a contrasting cultural fusion of African, European and North American visual design communicating the contrasting population make-up of Cuba. Artists from Cuba adopted European modernism and the 1920-1940 era saw an increase in Cuban vanguardism trends; these trends were identified by a variety of modern aesthetic styles. Some of the more celebrated 20th century Cuban artists tended to hail from the early part of the 20th century (for instance Wifredo Lam).

Possibly the most illustrious artwork to come out of Cuba was THAT photo of a certain Che Guevara (shot by Mr Alberto Korda) which ended up being arguably one of the most famous photos of the previous century.

The indigenous Cuban art movement gained some pace after the opening of the the art academy (San Alejandro) back in 1818, which was developed to gratify the European penchant of the middle class population of Cuba. In the late 19th century, landscapes dominated the art movement of Cuba and classicalism prevailed as the main art genre. Nevertheless, the pioneering Cuban modern artist of the late 1920s had spurned the theoretical rules of Cuba’s national art academy. During their formative years, numerous Cuban artists had resided in Paris, where they studied and ingested the fundamentals of cubism, surrealism and modernist primitivism. Once back in Cuba, they became committed to new aesthetic methods and were keen to combine this new artistic persuasion with a Cuban influence. The vanguardia Cuban artists accomplished worldwide recognition back in 2003 when the Museum of Modern Art exhibited the the Modern Cuban Painting show. These sorts of styles are now fashionable via canvas art mounted on walls worldwide.