Valentín Sanz Carta
Period: Colonial
1849 - 1898

Landscape with Stream and Rocks
Paisaje con Riachuelos y Rocas, ca. 1885
oil on canvas
26 x 36 inches

Valentín Sanz Carta was born on February 27, 1849, in the Canary Islands, where he began his art education at the Provincial Academy of Fine Arts. While there, he received his first awards in 1861 and 1862. Later, in 1869, he won a medal awarded by the Economic Society of Friends of Tenerife. In 1870 he continued his studies at Madrid's prestigious San Fernando Academy, where he was taught by the renowned landscape artist Carlos Haes.

In 1882, Sanz Carta moved to Havana, establishing himself as a portrait painter and, mainly, as a landscape and seascape artist. He confronted the complexity presented by the intense light of the tropics and its reflections in the rich and vivid gamut of colors in the country. On his canvases, he was able to capture the island's beauty, its exotic vegetation, and the majesty of its countryside and coasts. In his works, he sought to achieve as much realism as possible by habitually painting in the natural environs, as opposed to a studio. In Novermber 1887 he won, in a contest, the Landscape Painting Chair at the San Alejandro Academy, a position he held until shortly before his death, on October 1, 1898.

Valentín Sanz Carta's painting has been considered by experts among the best Cuban landscape oeuvre of the 19th century. His works were included in important exhibits such as 1940's Three Hundred Years of Art in Cuba, in Havana and 1950's Colonial Painting in Cuba at the National Capitol Building in Havana. Recently, his oil landscape paintings have been included in group exhibitions at the Prado Museum in Madrid, as well as in Salamanca and other Spanish cities.