Manuel Mendive acrylic canvas, it has a COA. 30 x 25 inches. Provenance: private owner.
Biography: Born: 1944. Manuel Mendive is a significant Cuban 21st century artist. A major exponent of contemporary Afro-Cubanismo in the visual arts, he was born in 1944 into a Santería-practicing family. He graduated from the Academia de Artes Plásticas San Alejandro in Havana in 1962 with honors in sculpture and painting. He held his first one-man show at the Center of Art in Havana in 1964.Since then he has exhibited at international venues. The Cuban booth at the XLII International Biennial Exhibition of Modern Art in Venice in 1988 was completely dedicated to his works.His work can be found in Museums and galleries in many countries including the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in Havana, the Musee d'Art Moderne in Paris; as well as museums in Russia, Somalia, Congo, Norway, Denmark, Finland and the U.S and other countries.Manuel Mendive Hoyo was born on December 15, 1944, in Luyanó, the same Havana neighborhood where Wifredo Lam went back to live for a few months on his "retours au pays natal" in 1942 and where Lam made his first "rediscoveries" of that visual universe André Breton would later describe as an un-trammelled union of real and magical worlds. It is mainly a dock and factory worker neighborhood.The wooden house where Mendive was born was built in 1900 by his maternal grandfather Fermín Hoyo Espelusín, a construction worker. This grandfather is the most direct family antecedent for Mendive's artistic talent, for he was also a carver and engraver. He was sought for complicated architectural projects with decorative work and other nonfunctional aspects, such as the "Mudejar Palace" in the Plaza de las Ursulinas or the monument to General Antonio Maceo in the Havana park of the same name.During the building of the latter Fermin was blinded in an accident. He was one of those anonymous master-builders who from colonial times spontaneously shaped "the style" of a city "without style" as it was aptly described by Carpentier in a memorable essay on the architecture of Havana; one of those eclectic "naifs" who were bold enough to invent scores of rare orders, with unusual, fancy columns and capitals whose design was hardly ever repeated throughout the kilometers of avenued porchways dating back to the turn of the century...Writing about his work, the critic Edward Sullivan says, "I conceive of his work as daring, rebellious, unconventional and brave. He does not care about fashion or trends. His images, which so often incorporate and wildly transform the vestiges of African stimulus, do not appeal necessarily to those who seek the latest trend in the art world. Instead of intellectualized minimalism or hollow conceptualism, Mendive relies on the senses: thought, touch, color, breath, air, and fire".

All authorship of items in this catalog are described according to the following terms:

Signed [Artist Name] : In cases in which the signature is legible in the lot, this work is described as-is with no attributions given.

By [Artist Name] : The work is by the artist.

Attributed to [Artist Name] : The work may be ascribed to the artist on the basis of style, but there may be some question as to actual authorship.

In the manner of [Artist Name] : The work was executed by an unknown hand, but was designed deliberately to emulate the style of the artist.

After [Artist Name] : The work was executed by an unknown hand, but is a deliberate copy of a known work by the artist.

Circle of [Artist Name] : A work of the period of the artist showing his influence, closely associated with the artist but not necessarily his pupil.

Follower of [Artist Name]: A work by a pupil or a follower of the artist (not necessarily a pupil).

American, 19th century: This work was executed by an unknown hand, and can only be identified by origin (i.e., region, period).

Mint based on the description