Description

"COLADOR EN NAVIDAD" LIMITED EDITION PRINT 1/20 18/20 ABOUT THE ARTIST: Ramón was born on July 14, 1962, in Havana. In this city, specifically in the neighborhood of Centro Habana, very close to the coast, he spent his childhood, adolescence and early youth. His vocation for the plastic arts manifested itself from an early age, as evidenced by his first children's drawings and paintings. At the age of ten, his father gave him a tempera and a pad to paint, and this present motivated him for the rest of his days. This artistic sensitivity, which includes his passion for cinema, the art that has most permanently influenced his work, led him to enroll in the National School of Applied Arts in Havana. In this institution he studied and graduated with an excellent record in 1987. Among his teachers he counted on the famous painter Carmelo González, who was his mentor and chose him as his favorite disciple. As a professional, Unzueta worked as an illustrator and cartoonist for several higher education publishers and publishers specializing in children's literature. He also contributed to several popular magazines and periodicals, which gave wide publicity to his artistic work. During this period, before his final departure from Cuba, he perfected his technique as a draftsman and painter with the use of watercolor, pen and pencil, inks and oil, and even developed the art of collage, which would later lead to plastic expressions of total virtuosity in his mature works. Starting in 1992, and for two decades, he began to reside permanently in Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain. There he painted until exhaustion to leave a very personal and incalculable artistic heritage, which is still in the phase of being classified and exhibited to the public. Meanwhile, he traveled to see the works of the great masters of universal painting exhibited in first-rate museums, such as El Prado, in Madrid, or El Louvre, in Paris. In addition, he also visited Germany, England, Italy, the United States, Mexico, Portugal and Sweden. From Spain, Unzueta began to collaborate with his friend the Cuban writer Zoé Valdés, exiled in Paris. From this creative brotherhood, two children's books have remained, which are objects of art due to the original drawings they contain: Los aretes de la Luna, published by Editorial Everest; and Luna en el cafetal, from the prestigious French publisher Gallimard. Likewise, Unzueta illustrated texts by Valdés for such respected magazines as TRAVEL AND LEISURE, in Spanish, from Editorial Televisa, and collaborated with the children's magazine LIMÓN PARTIDO, from Miami. The year 2004 marks a turning point in Unzueta's upward career: Unzueta Gallery opens in Miami, Florida, a cultural destination where his work has been permanently exhibited and spaces have been set up for other artists and writers. , who have exhibited their pieces and presented their books, as part of wide-ranging cultural events. Likewise, his work has been exhibited in galleries in France and Spain with success not only to the public and sales, but also to specialized critics. In 2006, he was commissioned by the city of Miami to produce the Hispanic Heritage Celebration Poster. During his first personal exhibition in Miami in 2002, Unzueta was honored with the Distinguished Visitor Certificate, awarded by the Honorable Mayor of Miami-Dade Alexander Penelas. He was also honored with Keys to the City, from the Honorable Senator Gwen Margolis, Chairperson of the Board of County Commissioners, among other recognitions received throughout his career. At just 50 years old, Ramón Unzueta Chávez died in Tenerife, in the early morning of October 5, 2012.