René Francisco (1960) - Ignopolis. Serie.

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

Belonging to a generation of artists that emerged in the late 1980s, René Francisco Rodríguez (Holguín, Cuba, 1960) was honored at the National Museum of Fine Arts with the National Prize for Plastic Arts 2010. This award, given annually by the Cuban Ministry of Culture since 1994, is granted once to a visual artist, living and 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 graduated from the National School of Art (ENA) in 1982 and from the Higher Institute of Art (ISA) in 1987, a center where he has carried out an unorthodox teaching. Since the 1990s, he has become an essential reference within Cuban art in his pairing 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 occur in his transgressive pedagogical work, 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 today recognized figures in the Cuban visual arts movement.

His work as an educator, now twenty years in, was internationally recognized for the first time at the VII Havana Biennial, when in 2000 he was awarded UNESCO's prize for the promotion of the arts to Galería DUPP – the third edition of his project Desde una Pragmática Pedagógica. 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 relevant in 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 Interpreter (2009) and Paintings of Yesterday and Tomorrow (2010).

Notable mention goes to his socially engaged 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), linked to residencies, workshops and workshops in different places around the world. The multifaceted and dynamic body of work built by René Francisco, tied to social critique and irreverence, refers not only to existential problems of the country, but also to the intricacies of its history.

The processual nature of that work and its performativity have risen, 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 in Miami, Ella Fontanal de Cisneros, etc. He is preparing for November 2026, as curator of an exhibition at Casa de América to mark the Summit of Heads of State of Ibero-America.