Juan Miguel Rodríguez de la Cruz

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Juan Miguel Rodríguez de la Cruz (February 1902 in Villa Clara, Cuba - 1990 in Havana, Cuba) was a Cuban artist.

He was born in Villa Clara, Cuba, on February 1902. He died in Havana, Cuba, in 1990. He worked primarily in ceramics. He became a doctor in the 1920s and was an Adjunct Professor of Clinical Therapeutics at the University of Havana School of Medicine until 1960. After WWII, together with Dr. Carlos Ramírez Corría, he invested and managed an industrial ceramic plant in Santiago de las Vegas that was founded in the early 1930s by a Catalonian ceramist. This effort failed, but his interest in ceramics was born.

In the early 1950s, he began to learn about ceramics from a Czechoslovakian technician who was employed by “Industrias Cerámicas Unidas”. Thus begins the development of artistic ceramics in Cuba. The great painters of the '50s, Amelia Peláez, Portocarrero, Wilfredo Lam and others joined the effort. Dr. Rodriguez de la Cruz provided the ceramics and the painters began experimenting with ceramics as an art expression. During this time the remarkable mural by Amelia Peláez, Marta Arjona, Mirta García Buch and Rebeca Robes, was installed in 1953 at the front wall of the former Tribunal de Cuentas building (today the Ministry of the Interior). It was designed, painted and baked in Dr. Rodriguez de la Cruz art studio in Santiago de las Vegas. In the eighties, he was Technical Advisor in ceramics in the Isla de la Juventud, Cuba.

Individual Exhibitions

In addition to his life as a medical doctor he participated in various exhibitions of his ceramics art. Many of his pieces were given as gifts to visiting government dignitaries by the Revolutionary Government. One exhibit took place in 1954 at the Lyceum, Havana, Cuba. In 1982, he presented Rodríguez de la Cruz. Fuego y arte, Galería Amelia Peláez, Havana, Cuba. Finally in 1988 he presented a retrospective exhibition of his works, Galería Plaza Vieja, Fondo Cubano de Bienes Culturales, Havana, Cuba. Today there is an exhibit of his ceramic work and that of other very well known Cuban painters at the Castillo de la Fuerza museum in “old Havana.”

Collective Exhibitions

His pieces were shown collective shows as that one celebrated in 1955 under the name Painting, Sculpture, and applied arts of Cuba in Tampa: The progress fair, Tampa, Florida, U.S.A.. In 1986, his works were displayed in the show Artesanía Cubana 1986, Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Havana, Cuba.

References

* Jose Veigas-Zamora, Cristina Vives Gutierrez, Adolfo V. Nodal, Valia Garzon, Dannys Montes de Oca; Memoria: Cuban Art of the 20th Century; (California/International Arts Foundation 2001); ISBN 9780917571114
* Jose Viegas; Memoria: Artes Visuales Cubanas Del Siglo Xx; (California International Arts 2004); ISBN 9780917571121 es icon