Carlos Alfonzo was a Cuban-American painter known for his neo-impressionistic style.
15 Facts About Carlos Alfonzo
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Carlos Alfonzo's work has been collected by Whitney Museum of American Art and Smithsonian Institution.
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Carlos Alfonzo attended the Academia San Alejandro in Cuba, where he received a degree in art in 1973.
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Carlos Alfonzo later attended the University of Havana, where he received an art history degree in 1977.
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In hopes of finally attaining true freedom as an individual and an artist, and after days spent crowded into the Peruvian Embassy, Alfonzo left Cuba via the Mariel boatlift in 1980, on a journey that was marred by violence.
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Carlos Alfonzo was selected by the Whitney Museum of Art in New York as an artist exemplifying the most recent accomplishment in contemporary art, to be exhibited in the 1991 Biennial.
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Carlos Alfonzo borrowed forms from Cuban Santeria, medieval Catholic mysticism, and tarot cards to build a system of symbols floating in huge limpid tears.
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Carlos Alfonzo's work was influenced by Cuba artist Wilfredo Lam.
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Carlos Alfonzo's life was claimed by AIDS in Miami, Florida in 1991.
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Paradoxically, Carlos Alfonzo made the decision to leave Cuba just 8 months before the opening of the pivotal Volumen 1 exhibition that heralded a new international direction in contemporary Cuban art, and where Carlos Alfonzo was slated to exhibit among those who would later become known as the 1980s generation.
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Carlos Alfonzo's work has been exhibited in solo and group shows on a national and international scale including the 1991 Whitney Biennial, the exhibition entitled Hispanic Art in the United States, which traveled to seven prominent American institutions, and the 41st Biennial Exhibition of Contemporary American Painting at Corcoran Gallery.
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Carlos Alfonzo was the subject of several solo exhibitions in institutions including the Miami Art Museum, the Bass Museum of Art in Miami Beach, the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art in North Carolina, and the Hal Bromm Gallery in New York.
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Carlos Alfonzo has been collected by Whitney Museum of American Art and Smithsonian Institution.
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Carlos Alfonzo's work is in the permanent collection of the Miami-Dade Public Library, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the De la Cruz Collection The Rodriguez Collection, and numerous institutions of worldwide prominence.
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Carlos Alfonzo was one of three artists featured in the 1998 documentary film by Maria Lino, entitled Three Artist Profiles.