Roberto Diago
Period: The Vanguard
1920 - 1955

Woman
Mujer, 1945
oil on board
23 x 18 1/2 inches

Roberto Juan Diago Querol was born in Havana in 1920. After graduating from the San Alejandro Academy in 1941 as a painter and professor, he became one of the first Cuban artists to explore engraving on the island. By 1937, Roberto Diago was an active member of the Free Studio of Painting and Sculpture, in which his creative liberty prospered. Between 1941 and 1955, he produced the entirety of his artistic work, a corpus of great originality. In 1945, he was named professor of drawing at the School of Arts in Matanzas. That summer, he exhibited at the Grolier Club of New York. Following this, he presented solo exhibitions throughout Europe, South and Central America, and the Caribbean. Diago produced notable wood engravings, designed sets for the popular theatre, and illustrated a few stories and books. The presence of surrealist elements, the picassian moments, and the recurrence of abstraction describe an evolution in his work which was interrupted only by his abrupt physical disappearance in Madrid, 1955.


Bibliography

Hurtado, Oscar et al (eds). Pintores Cubanos. Havana, Cuba: Empresa Artes Graficas, 1962.