Cernuda Arte

Search:

Museum Quality Artworks In Exhibition at Cernuda Arte: René Portocarrero, Viñales Valley, Landscape, 1944

Exhibition Photos

RENÉ PORTOCARRERO (1912 – 1985)
Viñales Valley, Landscape
(Valle de Viñales, Paisaje), 1944
oil on canvas
31 x 23 ½ inches

Provenance:
Félix Pita Rodríguez Collection, Havana, Cuba.

Exhibited (Paisaje) in René Portocarrero,
Exposición Retrospectiva,
Museo Nacional, Havana, Cuba, July, 1967,
and listed in the corresponding museum catalog, number 45.

Illustrated in the book PORTOCARRERO,
Ramón Vázquez Díaz,
Fundación Arte Cubano, Artes Gráficas Palermo,
Madrid, 2015, page 126.

Illustrated in the catalog IMPORTANT CUBAN ARTWORKS,
Volume Eighteen, Cernuda Arte,
Coral Gables, Florida, 2021, page 55.

Born in Havana in 1912, René Portocarrero
was a leading artist of the 20th Century
Modern Art Movement in Cuba with a
successful career and a distinguished
legacy. During his lifetime, the artist
participated in over one hundred
exhibitions at major museums, institutions,
and galleries in the Americas and Europe.
Portocarrero developed an aptitude for the
arts at a young age, first submitting his
drawings to the annual exhibition at the
Salón de Bellas Artes at age eleven.
The artist briefly studied at the San
Alejandro Academy in Havana, and later
expanded his horizons and inspirations
by traveling through Europe, Mexico,
the United States, and Haiti. During
the 1940s, the artist developed a unique style
in which the bold lines of a draftsman
interact with dynamic colors, vibrant
textures and graceful brushwork to create
surrealistic and baroque pieces.

The chameleonic Portocarrero moved
through several themes and series
throughout his long career.
In 1944, Portocarrero dedicated himself
to the production of rural landscapes,
rendered with his singular and modern
style. The genesis of this guajiro
landscape series was a visit to
the Valley of Viñales in the province
of Pinar del Río, where he experienced
“an ecstasy at the natural beauty.”
The artist committed himself to expressing
his epiphany through painting. The result
was a remarkable suite of bucolic scenes,
a dramatic departure from his previous
series of urban landscapes of Havana,
aristocratic interiors, and religious
compositions. Among these exceptional works
is the 1944 oil on canvas masterpiece,
Viñales Valley, Landscape, a sublime
and subjective window into Portocarrero’s
Cuba. The work would go on to be included
in his solo retrospective at the National Museum
of Fine Arts in Havana, and be illustrated
in the definitive book on the artist.

Portocarrero’s obsessive production
of landscape paintings in 1944 speaks
to the strength of his inspiration.
Viñales Valley, Landscape (1944),
a jewel among the series, reflects the artist’s
uninhibited approach to the subject.
Landscape painting had been a prominent
tradition in Cuba since the mid-19th
century. The genre was revitalized
in the 20th century by the modernist
Portocarrero. Throughout the series,
he alternated pictorial languages,
incorporating baroque ornamentation,
fauvist brushstrokes, the flattened
perspectives of the French naïve,
and the vigor of expressionism.
Portocarrero was wild in his production,
full of energy, enthusiasm, and the desire
to experiment. The guajiro landscapes
were not done with the discipline
of routine. Rather, they explore the full
artistic potential of the canvas, and include
some of Portocarrero's strongest painted works.
Among these, most certainly, is the visionary
Viñales Valley, Landscape, an ambitious
encapsulation of the artist’s influences,
inspirations, and painterly ability.

RENÉ PORTOCARRERO
The Happy Family
(La Familia Feliz), 1944
oil on board
34 ½ x 29 ¼ inches

Private Collection, Miami, FL
NOT AVAILABLE

RENÉ PORTOCARRERO
Viñales Valley
(Valle de Viñales), 1944
oil on canvas
16 ¼ x 14 ¼ inches

Private Collection, West Palm Beach, FL
NOT AVAILABLE

Illustrated in IMPORTANT CUBAN ARTWORKS, Volume Fifteen, Cernuda Arte,
Coral Gables, Florida, November 2017, pg. 54.

RENÉ PORTOCARRERO
Landscape and Hut
(Paisaje y Bohio), 1944
oil on board
20 x 24 inches

Private Collection, Miami Beach, FL
NOT AVAILABLE

Illustrated in IMPORTANT CUBAN ARTWORKS, Volume Fourteen, Cernuda Arte,
Coral Gables, FL, page 56.

RENÉ PORTOCARRERO
Landscape
(Paisaje), 1944
oil on board
31 x 35 inches

Private Collection, Coral Gables, FL
NOT AVAILABLE

Illustrated in IMPORTANT CUBAN ARTWORKS, Volume Fifteen, Cernuda Arte,
Coral Gables, Florida, November 2017, pg. 52.

Exhibited at René Portocarrero Exposición Retrospectiva,
National Museum, Havana, Cuba, July 1967, lot 47.

1944, when Viñales Valley, Landscape was executed,

was a landmark year in Portocarrero’s career.

In January, the seminal book Cuban Painting of Today,

written by renowned critic and curator, José Goméz-Sicre,

sees its first publication. The book contains illustrations

of five artworks by Portocarrero. The following month,

the University of Havana exhibits the solo show, Portocarrero,

to major critical success. Among the judges

of this show was critic, journalist, and poet, Félix Pita Rodríguez,

who would later become owner of this artwork.

Front cover and spine of the publication PORTOCARRERO,
Ramón Vázquez Díaz, Fundación Arte Cubano, Artes Gráficas Palermo,
Madrid 2015, wherein the work is illustrated.

Page 126 of the publication PORTOCARRERO,
Ramón Vázquez Díaz, Fundación Arte Cubano, Artes Gráficas Palermo,
Madrid 2015.

This same year, the artist exhibits his works
in New York at the prestigious Julien Levy
Gallery, one of the world’s premier
showcases for the international
Avant-Garde. Also in 1944, Portocarrero
is included in the groundbreaking show
Modern Cuban Painters at the Museum
of Modern Art (MoMA), organized
by Alfred Barr, exhibiting seven works.
This show then traveled to 12 museums
across the United States, including
the National Gallery in Washington D.C.,
and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
under the title Cuban Painting Today.
The latter shows would be among the most
important of his lifetime, and helped
establish his profile as truly international.
Portocarrero’s work would again feature
at the MoMA as part of their 1945
show Recent Acquisitions in Paintings
and Sculpture, and in 1998's Drawing
in Latin America.

RENÉ PORTOCARRERO
Landscape
(Paisaje), 1944
oil on board
41 ⅛ x 30 ⅞ inches

Ramón and Nercys Cernuda Collection, Miami, FL
NOT AVAILABLE

René Portocarrero went on to exhibit at
the prestigious Pan American Union
(Organization of American States Museum)
in Washington, D.C. in 1946, and at
Knoedler Gallery in New York City
in 1947. During the 1950s, he presented his
work at the Musée National d’Art Moderne,
in Paris, Museum of Fine Arts in Houston,
Dallas Museum of Arts, and Carnegie
Museums in Pittsburgh. He participated
in various editions of the Biennale
in Sao Paulo, Brazil. By 1966, Portocarrero
achieved major acclaim when selected
to exhibit a one-person show at the 33rd
Edition of the Venice Biennale in Italy.

In 1967, the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in Havana held a major exposition,

René Portocarrero. Exposición Retrospectiva, dedicated to three decades

of the artist’s production. More than 300 paintings, drawings, and ceramics

were exhibited in this sprawling retrospective, hosted by the country’s

most important institution of the arts. Exposición Retrospectiva remains

the most significant solo show of Portocarrero’s career.

The exceptional Viñales Valley, Landscape (1944)

was amongst the works selected for the show, and appears illustrated

in the corresponding museum catalog, number 45.

Overall, eight works from the guajiro landscape series were included,

attesting to their place within the artist’s oeuvre.

Front cover of the museum catalog for
René Portocarrero, Exposición Retrospectiva,
Museo Nacional, Havana, Cuba, July, 1967,
wherein the work was exhibited as Paisaje, no. 45.

List of works from the museum catalog for
René Portocarrero, Exposición Retrospectiva,
Museo Nacional, Havana, Cuba, July, 1967,
wherein the work was exhibited as Paisaje, no. 45.

Front cover of the catalog IMPORTANT CUBAN ARTWORKS,
Volume Eighteen, Cernuda Arte, Coral Gables
Florida, 2021, wherein the work is illustrated.

Page 55 of the catalog IMPORTANT CUBAN ARTWORKS,
Volume Eighteen, Cernuda Arte, Coral Gables
Florida, 2021, featuring an illustration of the work.

Geopolitical circumstances of the Cold War limited the artist’s ability to travel.

Following the mid-1960s, Portocarrero continued to exhibit in Eastern Europe

and Latin America, and on occasion participated in exhibitions in the U.S.,

including a show at the Organization of the American States Museum (AMA)

in Washington, D.C in 1974 and a one-person exhibition at The Signs Gallery

in New York in 1982. René Portocarrero died in Havana in 1985.

In recent years, his artworks have been the subject of an exciting revival.

His works have been included in exhibitions at The Studio Museum in Harlem,

the Queens Museum of Art, El Museo del Barrio in New York,

and at the Vero Beach Museum of Art in Florida, among others.