Jesse A. Fernández

Jesse A. Fernández
Born	1925 Havana, Cuba
Died	1986 Paris, France
Occupation	Artist

Jesse A. Fernández (1925 in Havana, Cuba - 1986 in Paris, France) was a Cuban artist and photographer.

Career

Fernández participated in different art forms such as photography, sculpture, drawing and painting. He had a career as a photographer and was seen in several publications and projects. His work as a photojournalist was seen in Photo projects in Central and South America between 1955–1959. He was the art director of Visión in New York City and was a photographer for Revolución newspaper, Havana, in 1960.

Biography 1925 Jesse Antonio Fernández is born with Havana (Cuba) on December 7. 1932 With his mother and her brother, he settles in Asturias (Spain), area in which his/her parents are originating, to flee the dictatorship of Gerardo Machado in Cuba. Jess said this period: “we arrived to Spain where I learned how to fish, to drive out, dance, sing. We lived of barter and I became a small farmer truth. Until the 14 years age, I did not know large thing of the money. ” 1939 At the end of the Civil war, the family returns to Cuba. “On my arrival in Cuba, I was confronted with a cultural shock due to the language: I spoke with an Asturian accent and everyone started to call me “the Galician”… I had to brawl me to acquire a certain respect. Then as I am very cuban I then passed my youth at the rate/rhythm of the danzón. ” 1941 Between with the Academy of the Art schools San Alejandro of Havana. 1942 Leaves for Philadelphia to make studies of electronic engineer. “My parents worried on my subject and they sent to me in the United States to study. They were Spanish republicans who believed in progress. I would have preferred to make literary studies but in the place, I began studies to become electronic engineer because I liked mathematics. ” 1945 Go back to Cuba, and devotes himself to painting. 1947 Of return to New York, registers with Art Students League where he studies painting with George Grosz and Preston Dickinson. By evoking this period, Jesse Fernández said: “During 17 years, I felt prisoner of New York. I lived with 8 cats, my skulls, the books and the photographs. ” Friendly Ben Fihman, writer Venezuelan, described these years: “Choking It prison of Jesse lasting all these years had a name: New York. Poverty was his jailor,the words his only means of escape, and the women a protection. As these prisoners who never go to their of torture and who maintain their spirit and their cell best than they can, it bought his bread where it was the best, avoided buying preserves, and transformed a pumpkin into a festival. He knew where to find the shirt which would give him an air distinction. He lived with dignity. He preserved an extraordinary charisma vis-a-vis the adversity…” 1948 Meet the painter Wifredo Lam who presents it to the European painters living then in New York: Marcel Duchamp, Esteban Francés, Kiesler… “Rencontrer Duchamp had a major influence on me. He taught me that to be an artist, it was necessary to be free, and to be free, that one must not have responsibilities! ” 1949 Attend the meetings of Painters' Club on the eighth street of New York. It meets there of Kooning, Pollock, Motherwell, Resnick… 1952 Settle in Colombia with Medellín. It starts to take photographs: “Colombia is a country for photography and in Medellin it became for me a form of contact with reality. It is there that I found my own technique. I did not know anything with the photograph, I did not even know what was a diaphragm. I was locked up then with tons of learned books and I. I am a purist and I was influenced by Cartier Bresson and Walker Evans. ” 1954 Work for one of largest the Colombian advertising agency, Propaganda Epoca, where it meets Fernando Botero and Gabriel Garcia Márquez. 1955 Furrow the Amazonian area of El Atrato, studying archaeology and the ethnology. It meets the Indians Cuna and Katio. It remains in Guajira for four months, where it photographs the Indians. Go back to New York, where it receives a price for these photographs. 1957 Take part as a photographer in the turning of Nazarín de Luis Buñuel in Mexico. Then in New York, he works like photo-deferring. Its photographs are published in Life, Esquire, Paris Match, Jours of France, Pagent, Cosmopolitan, Evergreen Review, Time Magazine, the daily newspapers The NewYork Times, Herald Tribune… In spite of important requests for its photographs, it feels always more than one photographer: “I was painter all my life. When I returned to the United States, I made photo-journalism. But I finished by me tiring to take in photographs things which really did not interest me, like the war and his tragedies. I thus returned to painting. Now, when I make photographs, I take reality what I like and what I want. ” 1958 Accept the artistic position of director of the Visión magazine. He travels to Ecuador, in Guatemala, in Mexico and in all the Central America. In connection with its voyage to Mexico, he writes: “I wanted to meet Alfonso Reyes because I read his translations of the Greek, and that I liked them much. Carlos Fuentes brought me to Cuernavaca. Seventy years, Alfonso Reyes always played the seducers. He lived surrounded by books. The most beautiful library which I ever saw! ” In connection with Shine Buñuel, it also says to us: “I was going to see it. I wanted to know the version of the surrealism of Buñuel. While entering at his place, I was immediately struck by a thing: there was only one table, the portrait of Buñuel painted by Dali. But it was accustomed to eating the back with this painting by saying “it is shit! ”. ” Travel with Havana. According to Guillermo Infante Will pull up: “It did it each year to see its family, but this time it was on mission for Life in order to make a report on the artistic life of the island. Jess photographed writers, musicians, painters, sculptors and ballerinas on their native ground. Two masterpieces of photography were born: its portrait of Jose Lezama Lima, the best ever taken of the poet baroque, and his portrait of Hemingway, an intense study of the Master of concise prose whereas it crossed the threshold of old age. ” 1959 “I landed with Cuba and there was a revolution. I arrived just at the moment when Fidel Castro arrived at the capacity. I remained 9 months. ” Collaborate as a photographer with the Revolución newspaper and its weekly magazine the Moons of Revolución. 1960 Go back to New York and temporarily gives up photography to devote itself to painting. He teaches in School off Visual Arts. He lives in the “Village” and regularly meets Jorge Luis Borges, Aldous Huxley, Joan Miró, Antoni Tàpies, Antonio Will know. “On my return to New York, I had changed and I decided to set out again to zero. At this point in time the first skulls appeared. I say myself - I adore Cézanne, because it has a kind of ethics, of abnegation: if this man could paint three apples and that it was able to make so much things with… and like that he set out with the skulls. And much of these skulls are landscapes. And I started again unceasingly. However, when you made something in great quantity, it is never done in the same manner. The day thus arrived where, with my direction, I had gotten rid of symbolism. It had just become a question of space. ” Exposure to Arcy Gallery of New York. 1968 Teach off painting in School Visual Arts of New York. 1969 Start to alternate its work in New York with stays with San Juan de Porto-Rico, in search of an environment more favorable to creation. At this period he writes like art critic in many publications of which San Juan Star, Opus International and Knowledge of Arts. 1971 Exposure to the gallery El Morro, San Juan (Puerto Rico). 1972 Expose its drawings to the museum of the University of San Juan (Puerto Rico). 1973 Exposure to the Alliance Fran1caise and the gallery Botello de San Juan (Puerto Rico). 1974-1976 During this period, he lives between Tolède, according to him the most beautiful city of the world, and Madrid. 1975 Take part in a collective exposure to Vienna, entitled “fantastic Realism in Spain”. 1976 Take part in Basel Art Fair 76. Exposure of its “boxes” to the Ynguanzo gallery of Madrid. Those are a synthesis symbolic system of individual associations, its personal reading of the history and universal culture. Exposure to the Large palace at the time of the FIAC 76. 1977 Settle in Neuilly-sur-Seine. He travels to Mauritius, Reunion and Seychelles. 1978 Exposure to the House of the Culture of Orleans. Carry out a report on the English artists: Francis Bacon, Henri Moore, Lynn Chadwick, John Pipern Kitaj… Travel to Italy, Sicily, to Turkey, Morocco, Thailand. 1979 Exposure of photographs “Fotografias 1955-1979” to the Center Venezuelan of the culture of Bogota (Colombia) and to the Chamber of commerce of Cali (Colombia). Take part in the exposure “One Jackson Pollock” to the American Arts centre of Paris. Take part in the exposure “Siete Años” to the Theo gallery of Madrid. 1980 Exposure of photographs to the American Arts centre of Madrid. Exposure of photographs to the Museum of Contemporary art of Caracas (Venezuela). Publication of the “Mummies of Palermo”. This book of photographs appears with an introduction of Dominique Fernandez: “In black and white, using the only natural light, which parsimoniously escapes from some ventilators, it is an incredible report which Jesse Fernandez carried out. In seizing images, poignant until the insupportable one sometimes, the expressive reality of these mummies seems to invite us to follow a funeral and imposing opera…” Exposure

Individual exhibitions

His work was exhibited at the D’Arcy Gallery, New York, in 1961. His exhibit Jesse Fernández. Dibujos was shown at the Museum of the University of Puerto Rico in 1972 and his show Cajas. Jesse Fernández was seen at the Galería Ynguazo, Madrid, in 1976.

In June-September 2003 the National Museum of Art Reina Sofia held a retrospective of his photographs, drawings and cajas (boxes) in Madrid.

Collective exhibitions

In 1983 Caras y máscaras included the work of Fernández, seen at the Galería 8, Miami Dade Community College in 1988. Cintas Fellows Revisited: A Decade After was shown at the Main Library, Metro Dade Cultural Center, Miami, and in 1993 Photography by Cintas Fellows included his work, shown at The Art Museum at the Florida International University, Miami.

Awards

Fernández was granted the Cintas Foundation Fellowship (painting), in 1967 and 1975.

Collections

His work can be found in relevant collections such as the photographic archive, Office of Historical Matters of the State Council, Havana, and the Cintas Foundation Inc., New York.

References

• El Nuevo Herald, LINDEN LANE MAGAZINE VIENE ACOMPAÑADO. ESOTERISMOS DE LA CASA AZUL; June 22, 1997
• Fernandez, Jesse; His Catalog, ISBN ALDEASA 84-8003-209-4, Edition El Museo Nacional de Centro de Arte Reina Sofia 2003
• Memba, Javier (June 11, 2003). "El amigo de los grandes escritores". El Mundo. http://www.elmundo.es/2003/06/11/madrid/1414423.html. Retrieved 2008-02-04.  (Spanish)

External links

http://www.golfe-saint-tropez-information.com/animations/ramatuelle/exposition-a-ramatuelle-les-sentiers-d-argile/58884

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• "Cintas Foundation website on the artist". CintasFoundation.org. http://www.cintasfoundation.org/fellows_artists_f.htm. 
• LNE

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Persondata
Name	Fernandez, Jesse A.
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	1925
Place of birth	Havana, Cuba
Date of death	1986
Place of death	Paris, France