The images and information presented below are for the instruction of students and scholarly research.
Antonio Rodriguez Morey
(1849-1898)
Patio Colonial
Though some
critics have sited Morey as having been born in Havana,
he was actually born in Spain, and moved to Cuba with
his family when he was sixteen. The details of this
artists’ life are sketchy, but his art still speaks
volumes about this artists from long ago.
Schooled at San Alejandro like so many other great Cuba
artists, Morey eventually became the director of Cuba’s
National Museum of Fine Arts. Though this was a
respectable position, Morey still had financial troubles
in his lifetime. Some of his most valuable paintings
never even hung in the national museum in which he
directed because he kept them with his family for
financial security. For this reason, many of his
paintings may still be unaccounted for due to the fact
that his family may have sold some during hard times. It
is known that his daughter would refuse to sell his
work, but his grandchildren were more lenient on the
sales of Morey’s art.
Morey held ranks among some of the finest Cuban
landscape painters. His paintings of the rural Cuban
countryside and Spanish-style Cuban homes were simple,
yet full of beautiful Classic elements and Realism. Like
most landscape artists, his work was almost strictly oil
paintings of landscapes. To his credit, there are no
known portraits or interiors by Morey. However, he was
known to paint still-lifes, and during his schooling,
may have made a number of sketches, and perhaps painted
portraiture before he was well-known.
Paisaje
In 1891, Morey
returned to his native Europe to study the old masters.
There, he settled in Rome for a while, becoming a
teacher at the Sacred Heart Institute of Rome. While in
Europe, he was able to study in Paris and became friends
with Modigliani and Soutine, and was able to exhibit his
work at the Academie Chaumiere.
By 1912, Morey was back in Cuba, winning prestigious
awards for being one of the greatest landscape painters
in Havana. He also began teaching at the San Alejandro
at this time, and became an inspiration to a new
generation of Vanguard painters.
Orquidea
Landscape
La Fuente
Pictoral and lyrical,
Morey’s work is infused with his love of Cuban landscape
and European styling. His work is easily recognizable by
the rather large signature he leaves on the lower left
hand corner of most of his paintings. This is not a rule
however, for some of his better-known paintings are
unsigned on the front. Perhaps it is due to his Spanish
heritage, but Morey often portrays the fantastic
Spanish-style homes and European fountains of Cuba not
often portrayed in landscape painting.
Because of Morey’s extensive travel and teaching, the
likelihood of his work being owned in a private
collection is great. Today, his paintings are housed in
museums in Cuban and Florida. Could you own a painting
by Antonio Rodriguez Morey? We would be glad to assist
you in authenticating a piece of work by this great
Cuban artist.
