Juan T. Vázquez Martín (December 23,ázquezMartí 1940 in Caibarién, Las Villas, Cuba – January 31, 2017 in Miami, Florida) lived and worked in Havana, died in Miami. This artist is listed among the Cuban Painters masters. An exceptional prolific abstract painter with a refine style of paint, creativity and cultivated technique. Painter, founder and director of art schools and galleries, teacher of drawing and painting, he was an artist who travelled the world for solo exhibitions, or as a curator for Cuban painters art shows. His paintings are held in international and private collections in South and Central America and Caribbean islands, North America, Europe, Asia, Africa and Middle East.
Biography
Vázquez Martín used to say his artwork was influenced by Paul Cézanne, Joan Miró, Paul Klee, Jackson Pollock, Antoni Tàpies y Manolo Millares, and the Cuban painters Juan Tapia Ruano y Hugo Consuegra.
He was member of the Writer and Artists Union of Cuba (UNEAC) and the International Association of Art (AIAP).
Vázquez Martín was several times selected by the artists members, as President and Vice-President of the Painting Association at the Writers and Artists of Cuba (UNEAC), in recognition to ‘his courage defending the contemporary painting in Cuba’, an office he held each time from 1989 to 1998
This painter art of painting is studied and continue being listed among the worldwide abstract painters masters. His work is held in a number of prestigious collections of national and international institutions including UNESCO International Association of Art (AIAP) in Paris, the Spanish Office of the European Economic Community in New York and the National Museum of Fine Arts in Havana, Cuba; also artworks of Vázquez Martín are listed in the National Catalogue Foundation of Great Britain because of this artist art presence in that country.
As a teacher this Cuban painter had a good pedagogy technique. He used to teach with an infinite source of creative classes to introduce and stimulate the students interest to the art of painting, its history and appreciation. Vázquez Martín believed that artists should know well the world where they live and how art has contributed to its development as well as its present influence and importance for the future.
Critics
Dr Josephine Reynell from Hertford College, University of Oxford, says
'The name of Juan T. Vázquez Martín is among of the great Cuban masters of painting; he is also considered one of Cuba’s leading abstract painters. Through dedication to artistic freedom he played a seminal role in keeping abstract art alive in Cuba. The so-called Grey Period or El Quinquenio Gris in Cuban culture, between 1970–1976, seriously undermined abstract art and indeed experimentation in all areas of the arts in Cuba. Art was seen as a useful propaganda tool and whilst no artist was forbidden to work in a certain way, only those artists whose work conformed to what was considered acceptable were supported. Many artists left the country. Juan T. Vázquez Martín’s refusal to leave Cuba and his steadfast commitment to his personal artistic vision exacted a heavy economic and personal cost, losing him official patronage and promotion. His courageous maintenance of his artistic vision in the face of real hardship had nevertheless enabled him to develop an unique style of painting which has had a profound influence on the new generation of young Cuban artists.
He was Director of a number of Schools of Visual Arts in Cuba and taught various well known Cuban artists including Flora Fong (exhibited in London 2007), Gabriel Gutierrez, Nasario Salazar, Oscar Rodriguez Laseria and Joel Jover.
At the age of 16, he won a prestigious and highly competitive scholarship to the Academia Leopoldo Romañach in Santa Clara, renowned as the most progressive art school in Cuba at that time. His art has been influenced by his close friendship with the renowned Cuban painters Hugo Consuega and Tapia Ruano, but over the years he developed his own and unique style of painting.'
The Cuban painter and critic Manuel López Oliva writes
'Looking at Juan Vázquez Martín's paintings, what is immediately recognisable, is the Renaissance concept of 'the window', the dissolution of forms discovered by Kandinski, as well as the sense of textural beauty introduced by the contemporary painters of the matière school.
In essence, this involves a private display that allows the artist to make a series of paintings on canvas or cartridge paper, revealing to the viewer an ensemble of optical sensations that reflect the internal world of the artist.