Rita Longa Aróstegui (June 14, 1912, Havana, Cuba — May 29, 2000, Havana, Cuba) was a Cuban sculptor. She first studied commercial art and later briefly attended the San Alejandro Academy of Fine Arts but considered herself largely self-taught. She worked in bronze, marble and tile. "Rhythm, movement, grace, refinement and elegance are some of the qualities that define the organic quality of the pieces created by this artist." Influenced by

Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unite ...

, Longa created works that have become symbols of the environment to which they belong. Her ''Los Venados'' (1947), depicting a family of deer, stands at the entrance to the Havana Zoo. The marble ''Ballerina'' (1950) presides over the entrance of the internationally known Tropicana Cabaret Club. A bronze sculpture of the Indian chief Hatuey (1953) became the symbol of Hatuey beer found all over Cuba. Perhaps Longa's best known work is her modernist sculpture ''Shape, Space and Light'' (1953), positioned at the main entrance of the National Museum of Fine Arts in Havana.

Las Tunas “City of Sculpture”

On the initiative of Rita Longa, the city, Las Tunas, in southeast Cuba, which she considered her second home, erected more than 125 public works of art. Her bronze statue of

Jose Marti Jose is the English transliteration Transliteration is a type of conversion of a text from one script to another that involves swapping letters (thus ''trans-'' + '' liter-'') in predictable ways, such as Greek → , Cyrillic → , Gree ...

, the ''Apostle of Cuban Independence'', situated in the plaza bearing his name, doubles as a solar clock. Form Space and Light

She also has works all over Havana—at the National Zoo (“Family Group”), the Colón Cemetery, the Museum of Fine Arts (Shape, Space and Light), the Surgical Medical Center, the Payret Theater ("The Muses" and "Illusion"), Havana Libre Hotel (Clepsydra), and the garden of National Theater ("Death of the Swan"). Other countries also hold some of her works like Madrid, Spain (an engraving of Jose Marti) and Belgrade, Serbia (''Gema'')

Taino Indian village

The sculptor often visited the

Zapata Peninsula Zapata Peninsula ( es, Península de Zapata) is a large peninsula in Matanzas Province, southern Cuba, at . Ciénaga de Zapata National Park is located on the peninsula. It is located south of Ensenada de la Broa, east of the gulf of Batabano an ...

home of the Taino, Cuba's indigenous people. Fascinated by their culture, she created 25 life-size sculptures from marble dust and concrete depicting their daily life. The works are now scattered about a reconstructed Taino village in Guama that she designed with architect Mario Girona. One of these sculptures of indigenous leader

Hatuey Hatuey (), also Hatüey (; died 2 February 1512) was a Taíno ''Cacique'' (chief) of the Hispaniola province of Guahaba (present-day La Gonave, Haiti). He lived from the late 15th until the early 16th century. One day Chief Hatuey and many of ...

has become iconic and symbolic of a beer brand of the same name

Awards and recent exhibits

* 1935: First Prize National Salon of Painting and Sculpture from College of Architects. * 1936: Gold Medal at XIX Salon of Fine Arts, Havana. * 1945: First Prize at the Conquest Monument to the Soldier of Independent Wars. * 1949: First Prize Pan-American Congress of Architects. * 1951: Gold Medal at Exhibition of the Architectural League in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

. * 1982:

Alejo Carpentier Alejo Carpentier y Valmont (, ; December 26, 1904 – April 24, 1980) was a Cuban novelist, essayist, and musicologist who greatly influenced Latin American literature during its famous "boom" period. Born in Lausanne, Switzerland, of French an ...

Medal * 1988:

Félix Varela Félix Varela y Morales (November 20, 1788 – February 18, 1853) was a Cuban Catholic priest and independence leader who is regarded as a notable figure in the Catholic Church in both his native Cuba and the United States, where he also served. ...

Medal, Cuba’s highest honor for cultural merit. * 1995: National Prize of Fine Arts, shared with Agustin Cardenas. * 1996:

Felix Varela Felix may refer to: * Felix (name), people and fictional characters with the name Places * Arabia Felix is the ancient Latin name of Yemen * Felix, Spain, a municipality of the province Almería, in the autonomous community of Andalusia, ...

Order * 2012: Exhibit at the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Havana (National Museum of Fine Art) featuring 29 of her works on the 100th anniversary of her birth.

References

Sources

# Fortune, Jane and Falcone, Linda, 2014. When the World Answered: Florence, Women and the 1966 Flood. Florence: The Florentine Press. # www.cuba24horas.com/en/cuban-culture/arts/plastic-arts/797-rita-en-el-espacio-y-la-memoria # www.galeriacubarte.cult # www.soycubano.com/pena # Fernandez Salazar, Jose Fernando, 2014. www.thecubanhandshake.org/rita-longas-symbolic-sculpture-undergoing-restoration-in-las-tunas/ {{DEFAULTSORT:Longa, Rita 1912 births 2000 deaths 20th-century sculptors Cuban sculptors 20th-century Cuban women artists Artists from Havana