Felipe Jesus Consalvos (1891 – c. 1960) was a Cuban-American cigar roller and artist, known for his posthumously discovered body of artwork based on the vernacular tradition of cigar-band collage.
Life
Felipe Jesus Consalvos was born near
Havana
Havana (; Spanish: ''La Habana'' ) is the capital and largest city of Cuba. The heart of the La Habana Province, Havana is the country's main port and commercial center. ,
Cuba
Cuba ( , ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( es, República de Cuba, links=no ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribbea ...
in 1891 and grew up on the farm of his mother's family. He married, moved to Havana, and later emigrated with his family to
Miami
Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a coastal metropolis and the county seat of Miami-Dade County in South Florida, United States. With a population of 442,241 at ...
around 1920, eventually moving to
Brooklyn
Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...
and finally to
Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, largest city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the List of United States cities by population, sixth-largest city i ...
, where he is believed to have died sometime in the 1950s or 1960s.
Consalvos worked for much of his life as a factory
cigar roller.
Art
A large body of Consalvos' art work was discovered in 1983 at a
Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, largest city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the List of United States cities by population, sixth-largest city i ...
garage sale. The body of work consists of over 800
collages on paper, found photographs, musical instruments, furniture, and other objects.
Consalvos' playful and often subversively political work—on which he is thought to have collaborated with his son, Jose Felipe Consalvos --
appropriated cigar bands and cigar-box paper, along with magazine images, family photographs, postage stamps, and cut-up money. Following extensive conservation work, Consalvos' work was first exhibited in a solo show in 2004 at Fleisher/Ollman Gallery in
Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, largest city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the List of United States cities by population, sixth-largest city i ...
. Subsequently, his work has appeared in a number of public exhibitions and collections, including the
Philadelphia Museum of Art, the
American Folk Art Museum
The American Folk Art Museum is an art museum in the Upper West Side of Manhattan, at 2, Lincoln Square, Columbus Avenue at 66th Street. It is the premier institution devoted to the aesthetic appreciation of folk art and creative expressions of ...
, and the
Art Institute of Chicago.
Consalvos has been described by art critic
Roberta Smith
Roberta Smith (born 1948) is co-chief art critic of ''The New York Times'' and a lecturer on contemporary art. She is the first woman to hold that position.
Early life
Born in 1948 in New York City and raised in Lawrence, Kansas. Smith studied a ...
as a "self-starting modernist" who is "nearly on a par with
folk-art greats like
Henry Darger
Henry Joseph Darger Jr. (; April 12, 1892 – April 13, 1973) was an American writer, novelist and artist who worked as a hospital custodian in Chicago, Illinois. He has become famous for his posthumously discovered 15,145-page fantasy novel m ...
,
Martin Ramirez and
James Castle James Castle may refer to:
* James Castle (politician) (1836–1903), U.S. Representative from Minnesota
* James Bicknell Castle (1855–1918), businessman in Hawaii
* James Charles Castle (1899–1977), American artist-bookmaker from Idaho
* Jam ...
." According to Smith, Consalvos' work "belongs to the
collage continuum from
Hannah Höch
Hannah Höch (; 1 November 1889 – 31 May 1978) was a German Dada artist. She is best known for her work of the Weimar period, when she was one of the originators of photomontage. Photomontage, or fotomontage, is a type of collage in which the p ...
to
Barbara Kruger
Barbara Kruger (born January 26, 1945) is an American conceptual artist and collagist associated with the Pictures Generation. She is most known for her collage style that consists of black-and-white photographs, overlaid with declarative captio ...
."
Collections
*
Art Institute of Chicago
*
Harvard Art Museums
The Harvard Art Museums are part of Harvard University and comprise three museums: the Fogg Museum (established in 1895), the Busch-Reisinger Museum (established in 1903), and the Arthur M. Sackler Museum (established in 1985), and four research ...
*
Koehler Foundation
*
Minneapolis Institute of Art
The Minneapolis Institute of Art (Mia) is an arts museum located in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. Home to more than 90,000 works of art representing 5,000 years of world history, Mia is one of the largest art museums in the United State ...
*
Philadelphia Museum of Art
References
Further reading
* Greaves, Brendan. "Cigarmaker, Creator, Healer, & Man: The Artwork of Felipe Jesus Consalvos." Catalogue essay, Fleisher/Ollman Gallery, 2005. .
External links
Felipe Jesus Consalves at the Fleisher/Olman Gallery
{{DEFAULTSORT:Consalvos, Felipe Jesus
1891 births
Modern artists
American collage artists
Outsider artists
Year of death unknown
Cuban emigrants to the United States
Artists from Philadelphia