Manuel Mendive (b. December 15, 1944) is one of Cuba’s best-loved artists. Born into a close-knit spiritual family in the crowded barrio of Luyanó in Havana, Mendive’s talent showed early. When not yet 11, he won a UNESCO prize for painting. He was 14 when the revolutionary government came to power and government support for the arts convinced Mendive to study art formally. In 1959 he enrolled in painting and sculpture classes at the San Alejandro Academy, from which he graduated three years later with honors. In 1964 he presented his first one-man show at Havana’s Centro de Arte. An auspicious beginning flowered into dozens of exhibits throughout the world, including Algeria, Angola, Canada, the Congo, Denmark, France, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Mexico, Norway, Russia, Somalia, Spain, even the U.S.  Cuba’s 1988 exhibit at the Venice Biennial was dedicated exclusively to Mendive’s work.

One of his signature styles is poetic and dreamlike, tapping into realms of the unconscious; another is graphic and primitive. His haunting works draw on symbols and ceremonies of Santería (of which he is a practitioner) and the mestizo culture of the Caribbean. In exploring his Yoruba roots he captures the vibrant richness of Cuba’s African culture.

He is well-known not only for his painting and soft sculpture, but for his performance pieces in which he paints dancers’ naked bodies and creates theatrical backdrops and environments. Performances outside of Cuba or Europe, however, have not always been easy. A performance scheduled at the Kennedy Center in 1996 was canceled due to a last-minute denial of his visa by the State Department. (He was invited back in 1999.) In Japan to exhibit and perform, Mendive discovered that body paint there came in only black or white, the colors used in Kabuki performances. Exhibit sponsors flew to New York to buy the needed colors. Several videos have been made of Mendive’s performance pieces and his works are in museums and collections throughout the world. Many have been exhibited at the Cuban Art Space.

Mendive as a person and as an artist is not easy to categorize. Although arguably Cuba’s most important living artist, he is not part of Havana’s generously defined art world. He lives hours from the city, in the countryside near San José de la Lajas, at a magical site called Loma Peregrina, Finca Manto Blanco, in a world of his own creation, with his orishas,  animals, fish,  peacocks, altars, classical music, friends and family. His world moves with him on his travels, to Jamaica, to Africa, to France. Instantly recognizable, he dresses entirely in white, befitting his commitment to African religious practices, his gray hair in long tresses. He walks with a wooden cane as a result of a bus accident that took part of his foot in the 1960s.

Though clearly a visionary artist, and a trained one at that, many still think of Mendive as a self-taught artist because of his passion for spirituality. He is not only a painter but a magnificent sculptor in iron and wood, and has done beautiful ceramic works too. All of his art reflects a life of commitment to African spiritual practices, a commitment that became more intense after his first visits to Africa in the early 1980s. And whatever form his art takes, it seems to spring from his emotional life. As critic Gerardo Mosquera wrote in 1983 (Exploraciones en la plástica cubana, Letras Cubanas), “[Mendive] completely identifies with what he paints. He is incapable of painting from a distance, from the outside, not even as an academic exercise. . . . He paints only people, animals and things that are close to him, that belong to his creative universe. When he is tempted to paint something exterior, he does so by practically forcing it into his personal world . . . “

The Center for Cuban Studies has a long history with Manuel Mendive. He was the very first Cuban artist we met and worked with, and he continues to be an original and exciting voice in Cuban art. We are honored to present these works as our 35th anniversary calendar.