Attributed to Rafael Soriano, it does not have a COA. Medium: oil canvas. 28 x 23 inches. Provenance: private owner.
Biography: 1920 - 2015. Born in 1920 in the town of Cidra in the province of Matanzas, Rafael Soriano manifested an early inclination for painting. After completing seven years of study at Havana's Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes San Alejandro, he graduated in 1943 as Professor of Painting, Drawing and Sculpture. He then returned to Matanzas where he taught visual arts for close to two decades.He was one of the founders, and later Director, of the Escuela de Bellas Artes deMatanzas, an important art school in Cuba outside of Havana. In 1962 Soriano went into exile, settling in Miami with his wife Milagros and his daughter Hortensia. He worked as a graphic designer and occasionally taught, first at the Catholic Welfare Bureau, and later at the Cuban Cultural Program of the University of Miami. He continued to paint in the evenings.Soriano avoided vernacular themes which dominated Cuban art from its emergence with the first Vanguard in the mid-twenties. His work proceeded along the paths of geometric abstraction in the course of 1950's, but by the late 1960's, Soriano's work took a radical turn. His brush began to create amazing shapes; abstract expressions related to the emotions, feelings, meditations and mystical introspection. A novel treatment of light and color, transparencies and forms placed Soriano in a new aesthetic dimension and freed him from his earlier attachments to schools and tendencies.Through a highly refined technique, he focused on luminosity, of the pictorial metaphor and of the metaphysical language of forms. In his highly complex images, light acts as both form and content. It is this unity of purpose and means of representation that constitutes Soriano's contribution to contemporary visual discourse.Since his first exhibition in 1947 in Havana's Lyceum and Lawn Tennis Club, Rafael Soriano's work has been represented in numerous individual exhibitions and close to two hundred collective shows.His paintings have traveled through the United States, Brazil, Venezuela, Puerto Rico, El Salvador, Chile, Peru, the Dominican Republic, Spain, Switzerland, Mexico, Italy, etc. Currently his work is included in numerous private and public collections Blanton Museum of Art, University of Texas at Austin; Denver Art Museum, Colorado; Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers University, New Jersey; Lowe Art Museum, University of Miami, Florida; Museo de Arte Zea, Medellin, Colombia; Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Havana, Cuba; Museum of Modern Art of Latin America (OAS), Washington, DC; Museum of Art, Fort Lauderdale, Florida; Galeria de Arte Moderno, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, and in other important institutions and corporations.

All authorship of items in this catalog are described according to the following terms:

Signed [Artist Name] : In cases in which the signature is legible in the lot, this work is described as-is with no attributions given.

By [Artist Name] : The work is by the artist.

Attributed to [Artist Name] : The work may be ascribed to the artist on the basis of style, but there may be some question as to actual authorship.

In the manner of [Artist Name] : The work was executed by an unknown hand, but was designed deliberately to emulate the style of the artist.

After [Artist Name] : The work was executed by an unknown hand, but is a deliberate copy of a known work by the artist.

Circle of [Artist Name] : A work of the period of the artist showing his influence, closely associated with the artist but not necessarily his pupil.

Follower of [Artist Name]: A work by a pupil or a follower of the artist (not necessarily a pupil).

American, 19th century: This work was executed by an unknown hand, and can only be identified by origin (i.e., region, period).

Mint