Miguel Alasa (b. Havana): An actor, librettist, lyricist and playwright, Alasa’s play, Born to Rumba, ran for 520 performances at Duo Theater in New York, where he is artistic director, and became the longest running production by a U.S. Latino theater company. The musical Peggy and Jackson, which he wrote with composer David Welch, about the life of the artist Jackson Pollock, was presented by Joseph Papp at the Public Theatre. Other Alasa/Welch productions are Studio, Salon and Orphans. He is also an actor, and performed in the Broadway/National tours of Hair, Jesus Christ, Superstar, Tommy and Godspell.  He works under the name of Michelangelo Alasa. (Cintas for literature, 1980-81, 1981-82)

Reinaldo Arenas (b. 1943, Oriente countryside – d. 1990 New York City): Arenas’ extensive body of work – novels, poetry, essays and plays – has been translated into a dozen languages and acclaimed the world over. He first won critical attention with the novel Celestino antes del alba, translated as Singing from the Well. The novel was followed by El mundo alucinante (Hallucinations), which was banned in Cuba but published in Mexico in 1969 and honored in France with the Medici Prize as the finest foreign novel of the year. He served two years in a Cuban prison and came to the United States on the Mariel boatlift in 1980. Among his other novels are Otra vez del mar, (Farewell to the Sea), El Central: A Cuban Sugar Mill, and Old Rosa: A Novel in Two Stories. The director Julian Schnabel captured the writers’ life in the 2000 film Before Night Falls, based on Arenas’ book of the same title. (Cintas for literature, 1981-82, 1986-87)

The Unexpected Visitor, 1983, oil on canvas, 32" x 44"

Jaime Bellechasse (b. 1944, Havana – d. 1983, Miami): After graduating from the National Academy of San Alejandro, Bellechasse exhibited in Cuba, Mexico and Spain and his illustrations appeared in Revolución, Bohemia and Noticias de Arte, among other publications. He was one of the artists represented in 10 Out of Cuba at INTAR Latin American Gallery in 1982. (CINTAS for Visual Arts, 1981-82, 1983-84)

María Brito (b. Havana, 1947) From her base in Miami, sculptor María Brito has gained wide recognition and is frequently exhibited in the United States and abroad. Her work was chosen for the third ¡Mira! Canadian Club Hispanic Art Tour, for Ceremony of Memory, a major exhibition of work by Hispanic artists that toured the United States, for the Miami Generation traveling exhibition, the Cuba-USA: The First Generation traveling exhibition and for the landmark The Decade Show in New York. She is the winner of fellowships and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Florida Department of State, the South Florida Consortium, the Pollock Krasner Foundation and the Virginia A. Groot Foundation. Brito is one of the artists profiled in Maria Lino’s 1988 documentary film, Three Artist Profiles. She is also one of the featured artists in the book Latin American Women Artists of the United States. Brito’s work is in the permanent collection of the Miami-Dade Public Library and the Smithsonian, among others . She has a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Miami. (CINTAS for Visual Arts, 1981-82, 1985-86)

Atlantida Habanera, 2007, Acrylic on canvas, 48” x 48” 

Humberto Calzada (b. 1944, Havana) The paintings and prints of Miami-based artist Humberto Calzada are rich with architectural imagery and highly evocative of Cuba. They have been exhibited in solo and group shows in the United States and Latin America, including a 1991 retrospective at the Bass Museum of Art in Miami Beach. Calzada is the winner of the 1978 acquisition prize from the Museum of Modern Art of Latin America in Washington, D.C., and the recipient of a painting fellowship from the Florida Fine Arts Council. He was selected for the third ¡Mira! Canadian Club Hispanic Art Tour, the Outside Cuba exhibition, the Miami Generation traveling exhibition and the Cuba-USA: The First Generation traveling exhibition. His work is in numerous private and public collections, including Miami-Dade’s Art in Public Places collection, the permanent collection of the Miami-Dade Public Library, the Bass Museum of Art in Miami Beach, the Denver Art Museum, the Museo de Arte de Ponce in Puerto Rico, the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in Chile and the Museum of Modern Art of Latin America in Washington, D.C. Calzada studied industrial engineering and has a Master in Business Administration from the University of Miami. He taught engineering at Miami-Dade Community College in the early 1970s, but has since dedicated himself fully to his painting. (CINTAS for Visual Arts, 1979-80, 1981-82)

Belkis Cuza Malé (b. 1942, Guantanamo): A poet, essayist and journalist, Cuza Malé is the founder of La Casa Azul: Heberto Padilla Cuban Cultural Center, an institution that promotes Cuban literature and art. She is also editor of Linden Lane Magazine, a quarterly literary journal founded in Princeton in 1982, three years after her arrival in the United States. Cuza Malé is the author of El Clavel y la rosa, a biography of the 19th century Cuban poet Juana Borrero, Elvis: The Unquiet Grave or The True Story of Jon Burrows, and the poetry collections Woman on the Front Lines and Juego de damas. (Cintas for literature, 1981-82)

Untitled (Railroad Car),1982, Mixed media on board

Raymon Elozua (B. 1947, West Germany): First known for his realistic sculptures of American industrial architecture, Elozua has taught at several academic institutions, including Louisiana State University, where he was artist in residence in the graduate department’s sculpture program. For 20 years, until 1979, he was consultant and curator for the Allan Chasanoff Ceramic Collection, now at the Mint Museum of Crafts in Charlotte, NC. Elozua has received three National Endowment for the Arts grants in painting and sculpture. In May of 2003, the Mint Museum of Art and the Mint Museum of Craft and Design presented a career retrospective survey of his sculptures, paintings, photography and digital works. Elozua studied at the University of Chicago (CINTAS for Visual Arts, 1981-82)

Damián Fernández (b. 1957, Cuba): A longtime academic whose work has focused on Cuban politics, Latin American international relations and postmodern theory and culture, Fernández is the author of Cuba and the Politics of Passion and Cuba's Foreign Policy in the Middle East, and the editor of Cuban Studies since the Revolution, and Central America and the Middle East: The Internationalization of the Crises. He has co-edited several other books, including Cuba, the Elusive Nation: Reinterpretation of National Identity, with Madeline Cámara. Fernández has conducted research in Cuba, Brazil, Peru, Honduras, Panama and several other Caribbean countries. Fernández received a B.A. from Princeton University and a Ph.D. from the University of Miami. He served as professor of international relations at Florida International University and the director of FIU’ Cuban Research Institute, Provost at Purchase College in New York and, in 2011, was appointed head of the Ethical Culture Fieldston School, also in New York. (Cintas for literature, 1981-82)

Lorenzo García Vega (b. 1926, Jagüey Grande – d. 2012, Miami): The author of several collections of poems, novels and essays, García Vega was honored in 2002 by the Argentine magazine Diario de Poesía for his role as a member of the legendary Cuban literary group Orígenes, and “as an extraordinary writer and exceptional witness to contemporary Cuban history.” His books include the poetry collections Suite para la espera, Ritmos acribillados and Variaciones a como veredicto para sol de otras dudas; the novel Espirales del cuje, and Los años de Orígenes and Antología de la novela cubana. In 2005, the first anthology of his work, titled No mueras sin laberinto, was published in Argentina. (Cintas for literature, 1981-82)

Near the Edge, oil on canvas, 22.5" x 18.5"

Miguel González Padura (Miguel Padura) (b. Havana, 1957) Among other exhibitions, Padura has participated in Outside Cuba, Les Plus Grands Peintres Latins d’Amérique at the Centre Culturel Paul Dumais in Tonneins, France; Cuban Artists in North America/Artistes Cubains en Amérique du Nord at the National Library of Canada; ¡Mira! Canadian Club Hispanic Art Tour III, and Breaking Barriers, at the Museum of Art in Fort Lauderdale. His work is in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Archer M. Huntington Art Gallery in Texas, the Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum in New Jersey, the Lowe Art Museum at University of Miami, and the Norton Gallery of Art in West Palm Beach. Padura studied painting with Roberto Martínez in Miami. (CINTAS for Visual Arts, 1981-82)

Yolanda Martín (Cintas for literature, 1981-82)

 Ileana Morgado García (b. Havana) A naif painter. (Cintas for art, 1981-82)

Pieces Of Paintings, Slices Of Thought(Fragments go Farther than Wholes), Paint on plywood (message); white wrapping paper with tag, 4” x 4”

Lydia Rubio (b. 1946, Havana) Distinguished by the use of words and images in painted multi-paneled pieces or installations, Lydia Rubio’s work suggest narrative puzzles and are often accompanied by books outlining the concepts and derivations of the works. Throughout her career, Rubio has had more than a dozen solo shows and more than 50 group shows in national and regional public and private institutions. In 2002, Rubio completed a major public art commission for the Port of Miami. More recently, she was commissioned to do large-scale public art sculptures for the Raleigh Durham Airport and for The Women’s Park in Miami Dade County. Her work is represented in the permanent collections of the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, the University of Southern California, the Wolfsonian FIU, the Museum of Art Fort Lauderdale, the Cuban Heritage Collection at the University of Miami and the art galleries of Miami Dade College, Bryn Mawr College and Lehigh University. Rubio is the recipient of a Creative Capital Professional Development Seminar, a Pollock Krasner Fellowship and a State of Florida Individual Artist Fellowship. For two years, Rubio was a visiting critic in the design studios at Harvard Graduate School of Design. She was also an instructor at the University of Puerto Rico School of Architecture and at Parsons School of Design in New York, where she developed the Visual Thinking Studio within the Department of Environmental Design. Rubio received a Master’s in architecture from Harvard’s Graduate School of Design and a Bachelor’s in architecture from the University of Florida. She also studied urban design at Università degli Studi in Florence. Rubio moved to the United States from Cuba in 1960 and lived in Puerto Rico, Italy, Boston and New York before settling in Miami in 1989. Artist’s website: www.lydiarubio.com. (Cintas for art, 1981-82)

Miguel Sales (b. 1951, Havana): A political prisoner for eight years, Sales’ poetry won an award from the New York Circle of Ibero-American Writers and Poets while he was detained in La Cabaña. His book Desencuentros, containing poems written in prison, was reissued in 1995. His work is included in the anthology Ínsulas al Pairo. Sales is also a writer of essays. (Cintas for literature, 1981-82)

Alfredo Sánchez (b. 1949, Havana):  An urban designer, planner and architect specializing in large scale design, Sanchez has designed and directed numerous major planning studies and urban design plans throughout the world. Among these projects is the new community of Costa del Este in Ciudad Panama, Panama; the City of New Orleans Neighborhoods Rebuilding Plan; Ensenada Mexico Cruise Port and Marina among others. His project experience encompasses city wide master plans, corridor plans, major reconstruction efforts,  redevelopment and design of new communities, seaport master plans and marinas.  Sanchez is a Partner in the Miami firm Bermello Ajamil & Partners, Inc. He has a Bachelor’s degree in Architecture from the University of Florida, Master’s in Architecture and Master’s in City Planning from the University of Pennsylvania. (CINTAS for Architecture & Design, 1981-82)

Imagine My Surprise!, 1982, Hand-colored lithograph, 29” x 22.5”

Susana Sorí (b. 1949, Camagüey): Having focused 30 years of her life on the studies of yoga, meditation and vibratorial/energetic healing methods along side her art, Sorí believes art must “draw forth a change, a transformation in our nature.” Sorí has had several solo and group exhibitions at venues such as the Museo de Arte in Santo Domingo, the National Library of Canada, the Grand Rapids Art Museum, the Orlando Museum of Art and the Hillwood Art Museum in New York. She was represented in the 10th International Independent Exhibition of Prints in Kanagawa, Japan, in Expatriates: Paintings by 15 Young Latin American Artists, which traveled throughout Florida, and in the traveling exhibition Outside Cuba. The SOS-Kinderdorf International Organization commissioned the large mobile sculpture I Am That, now located at the Village d’Enfants in Marrakech, Morocco. Her work is in the collections of the Brooklyn Museum, the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, the Museum of the Art Institute of Chicago and the Miami-Dade Public Library. (Cintas for art, 1981-82)