Biography (Biografía)

Cacocum, 1947

Osvaldo García was born on October 10, 1947, in Cacocum — a small town in the province of Holguín, in the north of eastern Cuba. He grew up in the home of a paternal uncle, a small merchant, in the absence of both his father and mother. It was there, in borrowed notebooks and on the margins of whatever paper he could find, that he began to draw.

When he was old enough for school, he was sent to Las Tunas to live with another uncle — a school director and teacher — under what he remembers as an authoritarian regime. It did not stop him. He drew every comic strip that came to his hands, brought by teachers who were already quietly aware of his emerging talent.

The Boy on the Train

Unable to live with his maternal grandmother due to her poverty, and subjected to persistent physical and psychological abuse in his uncle's household, Osvaldo made a decision that would define his life. He was barely ten years old. He boarded a train alone, heading to Havana, where his father lived.

In Havana, he sold lemons from the portals of Reina Street — sitting at the foot of a church, directly in front of a classroom attached to the San Alejandro School of Fine Arts. He could not have known then what that building would come to mean to him.

The Literacy Campaign & the Scholarship

In 1961, he joined the national Literacy Campaign — one of the defining collective acts of his generation — and traveled to Arroyo de Mantua, near Cabo de San Antonio, where he taught a family of farmers to read and write. When the campaign ended, he was awarded a scholarship to continue his secondary studies in Marianao and Tarará.

His passion for drawing was by now impossible to contain — in schools, in recreational spaces, in the homes of neighbors. One of those neighbors, without his knowledge, entered his name in a call published in a national newspaper for a scholarship to the ENA — Escuela Nacional de Arte. He attended the selection. He was approved.

The ENA & the Masters

He began his studies at the ENA, and in his very first year, faced with the risk of not continuing, his perseverance was so visible — so relentless — that his peers gave him a nickname he carried for years: "Gran Jefe Indio, pluma incansable" — the Great Indian Chief, tireless pen.

He studied under masters who would shape Cuban art history: Servando Cabrera Moreno, Alpízar, Orlando Yánes, and Adigio Benítez. He graduated in 1968 and completed postgraduate studies in Baracoa and Holguín. From Holguín, the nationwide Salón 70 was organized — he participated from his first exhibition at the National Museum of Fine Arts, with works including La magia de ellas and La amante inevitable, pieces believed to remain in the museum's collection to this day.

He completed his postgraduate degree and began teaching at San Alejandro — the same school whose classroom he had once sat in front of as a ten-year-old selling lemons. He continued his own studies at the ISA (Instituto Superior de Arte), graduating in 1981. In 2007, his years of teaching were recognized with a nomination for the National Prize for Plastic Arts.

The Work

Since 1986, Osvaldo García has been a member of the UNEAC — the National Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba. He has made more than ten solo exhibitions, with themes ranging from the portrait and its psycho-social profile, to female sensuality, to his more recent series Interior Dance, which explores the world of ballet. Throughout all his work, a love of the figurative-abstract runs like a current beneath everything.

He has more than 70 group exhibitions across Cuba, France, Italy, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Spain, Mexico, and the United States — most recently with the Cuban Art Exhibition "Abanicos para siempre" in 2012. He received the "Adam Montparnasse" collective award for young painting at the XXIV Salón de Mayo, Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris.

His work as a book illustrator has been equally prolific — for Cuban and foreign publishers alike. His drawings and paintings appeared in the edition of Amor es resucitar, by the Cuban poet Dulce María Loynaz, for which he was recognized with the prizes of "Art of the Book" and "Literature in the Plastic."

Awards & Recognitions

• 2007 Nomination · National Prize for Plastic Arts, Cuba
• 2012 "Abanicos para siempre" · Cuban Art Exhibition, United States
• — "Adam Montparnasse" Award (collective) · XXIV Salón de Mayo · Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, France
• — "Art of the Book" · For illustrations in Amor es resucitar by Dulce María Loynaz
• — "Literature in the Plastic" · Dulce María Loynaz Cultural Center, Havana
• 1986 Member · UNEAC — National Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba

Collections & Today

Works by Osvaldo García are held in private collections in Cuba, the United States, Luxembourg, Ireland, France, and Russia. He lives in Havana. He is married and has three children — two daughters and a son — and three grandchildren.

He continues to work. He accepts commissions for drawings and paintings. Distance has never been a barrier. To inquire about acquiring a work or commissioning a new piece, please call (786) 265-9211 or reach out through the contact form.