René Francisco (1960) - Ignopolis. Serie.

René Francisco. Cuba. 1960
Category: Engravings and Printmaking Graphic Work
Series: Ignipolis
Publisher: Del Campo and others. Taller del Prado. Madrid.
Technique: Lithography
Support: Conqueror Connisseur 300 g paper.
Dimensions: 62 x 82 cm – (50 x 70 cm image)
Edition: 100 copies
The numbering of the copy may vary but always within the certified edition of 100 original works, signed and hand-numbered.
P/A: 10
H.C.: 10
P/T: 5
Genre: Abstract, Geometric

Belonging to a generation of artists who emerged at the end of the eighties, René Francisco Rodríguez (Holguín, Cuba, 1960) was awarded the National Prize for Plastic Arts 2010 at the National Museum of Fine Arts. This prize, awarded annually by the Ministry of Culture of Cuba since 1994, is conferred only once to a living visual artist residing in the country, for a lifetime body of work. This is the first time it has been awarded to an artist born after 1959.

René Francisco is a graduate of the National School of Art (ENA) in 1982 and of the Higher Institute of Art (ISA) in 1987, a center where he has practiced an unconventional teaching. Since the 1990s, he has become an essential reference within Cuban art in his duo with Eduardo Ponjuán and later for his solo career.

His artistic discourse has maintained a constant ascent, combining experimentation, renewal, research, critical sense and social interest; affinities that also appear in his transgressive pedagogy, which forms an indivisible unity with the entirety of his creation. René Francisco has proven to be a “facilitator or medium” – as he himself recently defined – for more than one generation of emerging artists, some of whom are now recognized figures of the Cuban visual movement.

His work as an educator, which now spans two decades, gained international recognition for the first time at the VII Havana Biennial, when in 2000 the DUPP Gallery – third edition of its project From a Pedagogical Pragmatism – was awarded the UNESCO Prize for the Promotion of the Arts. Subsequently, the Honorary Doctorate in Fine Arts from the San Francisco Art Institute in California, United States, in 2001, acknowledged both his work as an artist and his teaching.

Twenty-four solo exhibitions to date bear witness to his creative energy. Among the most notable of the last five years are: his presentation at the 52nd Venice Biennale, Italy (2007), Crossed Histories at PanAmerican Art Projects, United States (2008), and in Havana, the exhibitions Interpreting (2009) and Paintings of Yesterday and Tomorrow (2010).

A precise tribute is due to his socially oriented work known as Patio de Nin, in the El Romerillo neighborhood (2004/2005) – to name just one example – and also his collective project Plaza Almada (2009), associated with residencies, studios and workshops around the world. The multifaceted and dynamic body of work created by René Francisco, tied to the social, critical and irreverent, refers not only to existential issues of the country, but also to the intricacies of its history.

The procedural character of that work and its performativity have been on the rise, just as his artistic practice affirms his belief that art meets life, dissolves into it, and can transform it.

He has now become part of several of Spain’s most important collections in addition to those in which he already appears, such as the Jorge Pérez collection of Miami, Ella Fontanal de Cisneros, etc. He is preparing for November 2026, as curator of the exhibition at Casa de América on the occasion of the Ibero-American Summit of Heads of State.