Víctor Manuel García Valdés (October 31, 1897 – February 1, 1969) was a Cuban painter. He was an early member of the "Vanguardia" movement of artists who, beginning in the 1920s, combined European concepts of Modern art with native Primitivism to create a distinctly Cuban aesthetic.
Life and career
Born in
Havana
Havana (; ) is the capital and largest city of Cuba. The heart of La Habana Province, Havana is the country's main port and commercial center.Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes "San Alejandro", the most prominent art school in Cuba, where he studied under the famous painter Leopoldo Romañach. By his mid-teens he was acting as an unofficial professor of elementary drawing.Art Experts: Victor Manuel Garcia (1897-1969); http://www.artexpertswebsite.com/pages/artists/manuel.php retvd 12 8 15
By age 19 Manuel's talent started becoming evident. Nevertheless, he didn't have his first personal exhibition until 1924, at the Gallery of San Rafael in Havana, when he was 26 years old. In 1925 he traveled to
France
France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...
for a year of study in
Paris
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...
. There, he was exposed to the various Modernist trends of the city's bustling art scene; he found particular resonance in
Paul Gauguin
Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin (; ; 7 June 1848 – 8 May 1903) was a French painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramist, and writer, whose work has been primarily associated with the Post-Impressionist and Symbolist movements. He was also an influ ...
's Primitivist style of painting.Martinez, Juan A.;''Cuban Art & National Identity: The Vanguardia Painters, 1927-1950; University Press of Florida, 1994''; It was in
Montparnasse
Montparnasse () is an area in the south of Paris, France, on the left bank of the river Seine, centred at the crossroads of the Boulevard du Montparnasse and the Rue de Rennes, between the Rue de Rennes and boulevard Raspail. It is split betwee ...
that a group of French artists advised him to sign his paintings only as "Víctor Manuel" (until then, he had used his entire name and surname).
After returning to Cuba, Manuel's work was featured in both a solo show (Feb. 1927) and in the ''Exhibition of New Work'' group show (May 1927) at the Painters and Sculptors Association of Havana. Sponsored by '' Revista de Avance'', a magazine which was the main voice of the Vanguardia artists, these shows are considered to be important starting points of the Cuban modern painting era.Artnet.com - Victor Manuel biography; http://www.artnet.com/artists/victor-manuel/biography retvd 12 9 15 In 1929, following another period of study and travel in Europe, Manuel created his most famous painting, ''La Gitana Tropical'' (''The Tropical Gipsy''), popularly known as "La Gioconda Americana" ("The American Mona Lisa"), which is in the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in Havana. It is considered by critics to be one of the defining pieces of Cuban
Avant-garde
In the arts and literature, the term ''avant-garde'' ( meaning or ) identifies an experimental genre or work of art, and the artist who created it, which usually is aesthetically innovative, whilst initially being ideologically unacceptable ...
art.
In 1935, Víctor Manuel began to reap awards for his work, receiving prizes in the first two exhibitions of painting and sculpture, held in 1935 and 1938 respectively, at Havana's Lyceum. He was given solo exhibitions at the University of Havana (1945), the Association of Reporters (1951), and the Lex Gallery (1959), and was the subject of a career retrospective at the national galleries in 1959. In 1964, he began a new stage in which he expressed himself through lithography, holding experimental graphic workshops in Havana's Plaza de la Catedral.TheBiography - Biography of Victor Manuel; http://thebiography.us/en/manuel-victor retvd 12 9 15 He also continued exhibiting his works abroad.
He died in 1969, in Havana.
Style
Víctor Manuel's style was not monolithic, but it evolved greatly during his lifetime. His early paintings show a tendency to mix European styles with an earthy primitivism, such as ''La Gitana Tropical'' (1929). In the 1940s and 1950s he adopted the more stylized look that became distinctive of his work. During the last years of his life, his style became almost abstract, with his portraits suggesting
cubism
Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement which began in Paris. It revolutionized painting and the visual arts, and sparked artistic innovations in music, ballet, literature, and architecture.
Cubist subjects are analyzed, broke ...
.
He was very inconsistent in signing his work, ranging from a simple "VICTOR MANUEL" in all capitalized letters, to fluid and complicated script, to not signing his paintings at all. He even used a
pseudonym
A pseudonym (; ) or alias () is a fictitious name that a person assumes for a particular purpose, which differs from their original or true meaning ( orthonym). This also differs from a new name that entirely or legally replaces an individual's o ...
in a period of his lif
His subjects were the constant point of his work. He was eminently a
portraitist
A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face is always predominant. In arts, a portrait may be represented as half body and even full body. If the subject in full body better re ...
of female faces, as well as painter of
landscapes
A landscape is the visible features of an area of land, its landforms, and how they integrate with natural or human-made features, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal.''New Oxford American Dictionary''. A landscape includes the ...