Fidelio Ponce de León
Period: The Vanguard
1895 - 1949

Woman and Reflection
Mujer y Reflejo, ca. 1944
oil on canvas
19 1/2 x 24 inches

Fidelio Ponce was born in 1895 in Camaguey and died on February 1949 in Havana, Cuba.

He initiated studies at the San Alejandro Academy from 1913 through 1918, year in which he disappeared until 1923. He moved to a suburb neighborhood where he taught drawing to disadvantaged children and worked in commercial arts.
His first exhibition at the Lyceum became a great success for him. His work Las Beatas was awarded a prize from The National Salon, as well as prizes from The Salon of Modern Art in Havana in 1937. At this time his career was on a roll; he traveled to New York and opened exhibitions in the Delphis Studio. Again, he received first prize for his work Los Niños from the National Salon, and then disappeared until 1940. The Museum of Modern Art in New York obtained his work Mujeres as part of its permanent collection.
Ponce, who had a great personality, was a student of Romañach and his work was influenced by academicism. He was obsessed with the color white, which he used to call pintura nacarada in order to project light color from it. He enjoyed Kandinsky's famous words: "...white is a great silence full of possibilities.."