Agustin Cardenas
(1927-2001)

Agustin Cardenas was born in Matanzas, Cuba to parents of Senegalese and Congo descent. He studied at the San Alejandro School and in 1955, traveled to Paris on a scholarship. There he stayed until 1994, and during this time he participated in 100 exhibitions, 30 of which were one man shows. In 1994 he moved back to his native Cuba where he lived until his death in 2001.

While living and studying in France, Cardenas became friends with many artists in the Surrealist movement, as well as French Surrealist painter Andre Breton. This affiliation with the Surrealists highly impacted his work. His Afro-Cuban/Surrealist/organic styling is in a class all its own, and cannot be compared.

Cardenas' work is different from that of any Cuban artist, let alone the rest of the art world. Suffused with Afro-Cuban themes, his work is usually reminiscent of primitive African styling, along with waves of Abstract and Surrealist elements.

He has been called the "master of masters" and "the most prominent sculptor" in Cuba, and this comes as no surprise. Cardenas has been described as the equivalent to Wilfredo Lam in sculpture, as their themes are relatively similar and their mastery unparalleled. His lines are fluid, simple, and elegant, and he worked in nearly every medium from wood and bronze to crystal and marble. Cardenas usually used organic themes, such as the human form, often representing femininity and sensuality. Sometimes seen as "totems" of a long ago race, his sculpture is nothing short of beautiful and timeless.

Stele


Petite Famille


Iroco

Though primarily a sculptor, Cardenas would also produce drawings and oil paintings, often in the same vein as his sculpture.

Abstract painting

His color compositions in his sketches were even similar to the sculptures, and he would use bronze, taupe, black, browns and gold as his color palate. One of his best known oil paintings is "Composicion" (1983).

Composition, 1983
 

Because Cardenas traveled and worked abroad, as well as gained a considerable amount of acclaim in his lifetime, the possibility of owning one of his works is tremendous. Like most sculptors, he created more than one any particular sculpture. For example, "Desnudo" is a sculpture in a series of 50 just like it. However, just because it is not a "one of a kind," does not limit this sculpture's value-"Desnudo" is worth nearly $20,000 US dollars.

Cardenas was also highly revolutionary in his monument sized sculptures. In the 1960s he would often get commissions to create monuments in highly diverse areas such as Japan, Austria and Israel. Cardenas was very progressive in this field because he would execute these monuments and create them with minerals native to the land they were created for. He would dig up stone from the earth and create these "site-specific" pieces, which was a further extension of his organic movement.

Today, Cardenas' work is housed all over the world from the Musee d'Art Moderne in Paris to The Hakone Open Air Museum in Japan. His sculpture is also in museums in Tel Aviv, Belgium, Montreal and of course, Cuba. He has been called a key contributor to Modern Art in the 20th century, and to own one of his works would be a treasure.

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