{"id":200948,"date":"2019-06-18T19:17:49","date_gmt":"2019-06-18T23:17:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/?p=200948"},"modified":"2019-06-18T19:17:49","modified_gmt":"2019-06-18T23:17:49","slug":"massaguers-cuba-on-exhibit-in-miami","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/culture\/visual-arts\/massaguers-cuba-on-exhibit-in-miami\/","title":{"rendered":"Massaguer’s Cuba on exhibit in Miami"},"content":{"rendered":"

A bearded man in fatigues, as if he had just come down from the Sierra Maestra, serenades a young woman, while a poster of revolutionary Cuba reads: “Youth, joy and cold Coca-Cola.”<\/span><\/p>\n

The unusual drawing was published in Cuba by caricaturist, illustrator and publicist Conrado W. Massaguer (1889-1965), just after the triumph of the Revolution, when advertising and business coexisted with political propaganda and nationalizations.<\/span><\/p>\n

As in the river mouths when they reach the sea, where the water is neither fresh nor salty, or both at the same time, Massaguer managed to publish a whole volume dedicated to the new times of post-1959 Cuba, before its main private publications were closed.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Advertising of Coca-Cola in the post-revolutionary period. Photo: Lynton Gardiner \/ Courtesy of Wolfsonian Museum.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

“Advertising is to help Cuba,” reads one of the drawings, with a bearded character reading a newspaper that advertises brands such as Cigarros Hatuey or the U.S. Jell-O.<\/span><\/p>\n

These and other works by the prolific Cuban illustrator make up the exhibition Cultura y caricatura cubanas: El arte de Massaguer\u00a0at the Wolfsonian Museum in Miami Beach, Florida.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Advertising in the post-revolutionary period. Photo: Lynton Gardiner \/ Courtesy of Wolfsonian Museum.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The idea of \u200b\u200bstarting one of the most complete exhibitions of Massaguer’s work (and the first of its kind in Miami) arose from the work of U.S. collector Vicki Gold Levi, editor and curator of photographs and historian.<\/span><\/p>\n

Before collecting Massaguer’s originals, magazines, objects, letters, Gold Levi discovered him through Social magazine, during an investigation for the book Cuba Style, co-written with Steve Heller.<\/span><\/p>\n

Social was a “lifestyle” magazine founded by Massaguer that for more than three decades highlighted not only his work but also that of the best illustrators and draftsmen of the time in Cuba.<\/span><\/p>\n

His famous “Massa-girls,” an artistic representation, idealized and it could be said vindicative of the women of the time, with short, modern hair, drawn in an art deco<\/em> style, appeared in its pages and covers on numerous occasions, said Frank Luca, curator of the exhibition and head of the librarians of the Wolfsonian Museum.<\/span><\/p>\n

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A Massa-girl. Photo: Lynton Gardiner \/ Courtesy of the Wolfsonian Museum.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

“Even in the caricatures of American tourists to promote the Island, the illustrator chose to ridicule only the male escort, in a burlesque tone that he did not use with women,” said Luca.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Frank Luca, curator of the exhibition on Massaguer at the Wolfsonian Museum. Photo: Marita P\u00e9rez D\u00edaz.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Other magazines where he published were El F\u00edgaro and Carteles<\/em>, also donated by Gold Levi to the institution for the collection.<\/span><\/p>\n

During her trips to Cuba in the early 2000s, Gold Levi monopolized everything she found of Massaguer, and she continued to study in depth his work and his life. Next November she will make her seventh trip to the island, although to buy something new it will have to be “very special or unique,” said the collector.<\/span><\/p>\n

“I was dazzled by his ingenious graphics, by his lines, so pure and simple yet expressing so much,” she said.<\/span><\/p>\n

However, the exhibition has two favorite objects that do not reflect a mature stage of the artist, but his most intimate side. The first is a letter addressed to his father and his uncle, with the first known strokes of the artist where he showed tall buildings and the Manhattan tram, when he was studying in the cold Upstate New York.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Note to his father from New York. Photo: Lynton Gardiner \/ Courtesy of Wolfsonian Museum.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The second is a rocking chair he made for the firstborn of a good friend who lived in Miami, decorated with his strokes and preserved almost intact to this day.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Rocking chair for the baby of a friend, handmade by Massaguer. Photo: Marita P\u00e9rez D\u00edaz.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The value of the work of Massaguer, internationally recognized for his work in U.S. magazines such as Vanity Fair, Life, Cosmopolitan and Collier’s, reached the point of unleashing a wave of fake pieces that are sold as authentic.<\/span><\/p>\n

At the beginning of her collection, Gold Levi acquired one of those false drawings, also on display in the exhibition, in this case about Albert Einstein, included in the “Ellos” section of the Social magazine.<\/span><\/p>\n