Raul Martinez (1927-1995)
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Raul Martinez is known as the most famous pop artists to ever come out of Cuba. His work ranged from highly political, to purely commercial, but loudly echoes the changing of the times in Cuba in the late 1950s.
Like many others, Martinez attended the San Alejandro School, and after graduation went on to study in Chicago on a scholarship. In general, Martinez was successful in the plastic arts, and even took on photography and ghost writing for awhile. His themes were usually political in nature, or else his work was commissioned for poster work, such as the famous Cuban film “Lucia”.
During the 1960s, Martinez worked heavily in graphic design. He would often incorporate images of famous Cuban figures, such as Cuba’s national hero Jose Marti, and also Che Guevara and Fidel Castro. Fellow pop artist Andy Warhol created posters of Che Guevara as well, and one could say that their styles are similar (he even created square portrait repetitions of Jose Marti in the same way that Warhold did of Marilyn Monroe). It has been said that no other painter or artist has ever created as many paintings of Jose Marti as Martinez has.
One such example of Martinez using Cuban visages is in his poster “Cartel Cubano”.
After the 1960s, Martinez began experimenting with print making. He would make his prints in small numbers, such as this one entitled “Farmer and Che” (1986) which only ran 80 copies.
Martinez’s early work was very abstract in nature, and he would use a tropical color palate, and sometimes only black and white. He is not generally known for this early abstract work, and therefore some of them may have been overlooked by authenticators.
Martinez was a part of a group called “The Eleven”, who pioneered abstract art in Cuba. “The Eleven” or “Los Once” also used their art as expression against Batista and the dictatorship, and met regularly at Martinez’s studio for group meetings.
During his lifetime, Martinez faced a lot of hardship as an artist and as an individual while living in Cuba. He was openly gay, and during the 1970s in Cuba, many people were forced to repress their lifestyles. He did not, and was one of many professors to be fired, at which time he was working for the school of Architecture.
However, this unfortunate event for him made a great impact on art. He survived by doing freelance graphic design, which inspired generations of artists and forever changed the face of Cuban art. In a sense, he was responsible for the boom in print making and graphic design that Cuba saw in the 1970s. Towards the end of the 70s, he began to incorporate heavy texture into his artwork, such as lines to give depth to his paintings or prints.
Martinez has exhibited all over the US, Latin America and Europe, and his work is housed in museums worldwide. He received National awards in Cuba, as well as in Chicago and Tampa in tribute to his lifetime of work, and will forever be remembered as a forerunner in abstract and the father of Cuban pop art.