José Maria Mijares (1921-2004) - Zonder titel

Characteristic painting by the Cuban artist José Maria Mijares. It is an oil on panel painting with dimensions 30.5 x 30.5 cm. Signed lower right "mijares". This painting was made in the fifties.

Provenance

Private collection, Havana
Sarracino Gallery, Coral Gables, Florida, United States

Authentication
This work is authenticated by the Mijares Foundation dated September 23, 2019

José Maria Mijares
José María Mijares (born 1921 in Havana, Cuba – died March 2004) was a Cuban contemporary visual artist. He began drawing in his teens and at the age of 16 received a scholarship to the San Alejandro Academy of Fine Arts. His greatest sources of inspiration were the artists of the "Havana School": Carlos Enríquez, René Portocarrero, Cundo Bermúdez, as well as his professors, notably the modernist painter Fidelio Ponce. He was also part of the influential group Los Diez Pintores Concretos (the 10 concrete painters), or as they are usually referred to, Los Diez (the 10). Although the group had a relatively short existence, from 1959 to 1961, and only exhibited together a few times, they form an important part of Cuban art history, especially in the years before Castro and in the run-up to the revolution. He left Cuba in 1968 and resigned as a teacher at the academy when Fidel Castro came to power. He settled in Miami and remained a productive painter until his death in 2004, at the age of 82.

Biography
Mijares was born in Havana, Cuba in 1921. He began his art studies in 1936 at the San Alejandro Academy of Fine Arts, where he studied under among others Romañach, Menocal, Valderrama, Ramón Loy, and Carava. He lived in Miami from 1968 until his death in 2004. Florida International University awarded him an honorary Doctor of Arts in 2001. He also received the Cintas Fellowship (1970-1971), as well as the National Painting Prize of the IV National Salon for Paintings, Engravings and Sculptures. Mijares’s work has been shown in major exhibitions in Havana, Paris, Caracas, Port-au-Prince (Haiti), São Paulo, Tokyo, Washington D.C., and Miami, to name a few.

“Mijares is, first and foremost, a colorist, with pure color forming the essence of the shapes in his creations. Drawing usually provides a solid foundation, while bold outlines give definition and meaning to the whole. His thematic material is biologically inspired, based on living organisms: latent life without a static form lends a poetic mystery to his compositions... As a colorist, Mijares continues a tradition long linked to his country. However, he gives a new meaning to the language of the past and reshapes it into expressions that transcend the boundaries of time and place.”