José Roberto Fabelo Pérez (born January 28, 1950) is a Cuban painter, sculptor, and illustrator. Fabelo's art is characterized by bizarre and dreamlike images that combine elements of reality and fantasy. He pays meticulous attention to detail and uses a symbolic interpretation in his works Using vibrant colors and intricate compositions in his paintings, drawings, and sculptures, he often depicts fantastical creatures, anthropomorphic animals, and human figures. Because of his rich symbolism and allegorical storytelling, Fabelo is often compared to Goya. The artist is considered by some to be the Honoré Daumier of contemporary Cuban art, whose works have references to

Dante's Dante's is a nightclub and live music venue in Portland, Oregon. The venue, located along West Burnside Street and owned by Frank Faillace, hosts a variety of acts ranging from burlesque to rock music. Dante's is housed in an unreinforced mason ...

Divine Comedy The ''Divine Comedy'' (, ) is an Italian narrative poetry, narrative poem by Dante Alighieri, begun and completed around 1321, shortly before the author's death. It is widely considered the pre-eminent work in Italian literature and one of ...

", the magical realism of

Gabriel García Márquez Gabriel José García Márquez (; 6 March 1927 – 17 April 2014) was a Colombian writer and journalist, known affectionately as Gabo () or Gabito () throughout Latin America. Considered one of the most significant authors of the 20th centur ...

Hieronymus Bosch Hieronymus Bosch (; ; born Jheronimus van Aken ; – 9 August 1516) was a Dutch people, Dutch painter from Duchy of Brabant, Brabant. He is one of the most notable representatives of the Early Netherlandish painting school. His work, gene ...

, the skills of the Dutch and Flemish masters and

Rembrandt Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (; ; 15 July 1606 – 4 October 1669), mononymously known as Rembrandt was a Dutch Golden Age painter, printmaker, and Drawing, draughtsman. He is generally considered one of the greatest visual artists in ...

. Identity, the human condition and the relationship between people and nature are the main themes of his complex representational art.

Life

Roberto Fabelo spent his childhood in his hometown. The passion for drawing – or "''Graphomania''" as he calls it – began early at a young age, creating his illustrations with pencil, charcoal, ink or any other medium. After his primary school education, he received academic training at the National School of Art (ENA) and at the Higher Institute of Art (ISA) between 1967 and 1972. He completed his degree there in 1981, which covered practically all forms of expression in the visual arts, and worked there as a professor for several years. In the 1980s he achieved his first notable visibility in the art scene, giving lectures as a member of the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (UNEAC) and the International Union of Visual Artists. (Asociación Internacional de Artes Plásticas – AIAP).

Awards

The Cuban state awarded him the Medal of National Culture and the Alejo-Carpentier Medal for his outstanding artistic career. In addition to a variety of other Cuban awards, he was awarded the ''UNESCO Prize for the Promotion of the Fine Arts in Paris, France'' in 1996, as well as the New Delhi Triennial Prize for Contemporary Art in 1978 and the Armando Reverón International Drawing Prize at the I Havana Biennale in 1984. Other international awards include: La Rosa Blanca Award (1995 and 1998); the first prize at the Ibero-American Watercolor Biennial in Viña del Mar, Chile (1996); the first prize at the 11th International Drawing Biennale in Cleveland, Great Britain (1993), the IX. Drawing exhibition in Rijeka, Yugoslavia (1984). Purchase Prize III Triennale for Contemporary Art in New Delhi, India (1984) and the Drawing Prize at Intergraphik 1984, Berlin, (GDR). Since 2002, his self-portrait has been part of the permanent collection of the Galleria Degli

Uffizi The Uffizi Gallery ( ; , ) is a prominent art museum adjacent to the Piazza della Signoria in the Historic Centre of Florence in the region of Tuscany, Italy. One of the most important Italian museums and the most visited, it is also one of th ...

in Florence, Italy.

Exhibitions

In addition to a large number of Cuban exhibitions, Roberto Fabelo's works have been shown in major collections in Spain, Italy, Chile, France, Denmark, Sweden, Germany, Panama, Mexico, Venezuela, England, the United States and China, among others.Permanent exhibitions can be seen in the

Pérez Art Museum Miami Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM)—officially known as the Jorge M. Pérez Art Museum of Miami-Dade County—is a contemporary art museum that relocated in 2013 to the Maurice A. Ferré Park in Downtown Miami, Florida. Founded in 1984 as the Cent ...

(PAMM) and in the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in Havana as well as in the Cuban embassy in Mexico.

Special events and work

Roberto Fabelo illustrated an edition of

's novel "

Cien años de soledad ''One Hundred Years of Solitude'' (, ) is a 1967 novel by Colombian author Gabriel García Márquez that tells the multi-generational story of the Buendía family, whose patriarch, José Arcadio Buendía, founded the fictitious town of Macondo ...

" from 2007. On May 8, 2017, an exhibition was opened in the Palace of the ''Vatican Chancellery''

Secretariat of State (Holy See) The Secretariat of State (Latin: ''Secretaria Status''; Italian: ''Segreteria di Stato'') is the oldest dicastery in the Roman Curia, the central papal governing bureaucracy of the Catholic Church. It is headed by the Cardinal Secretary of Sta ...

. In 2018, Roberto Fabelo took part in the exhibition "''Artes de Cuba''" at the

Kennedy Center The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts, commonly known as the Kennedy Center, is the national cultural center of the United States, located on the eastern bank of the Potomac River in Washington, D.C. Opened on September 8, ...

in Washington. The exhibition included several presentations, including the debut presentation of ''Historia permanente'' (Permanent History), a large-scale installation by Roberto Fabelo. In March and April 2023, another exhibition "''Sobrevivientes'' (Survivors)" by Roberto Fabelo took place at the

. The exhibition presented, among other things, a herd of life-sized rhinos, one of which was symbolically decorated with a ribbon as a gift from nature. On February 15, 2023, an art exhibition was opened in Madrid by the ''Fundación Ibercaja'' entitled ''MUNDOS: GOYA Y FABELO'', who drew parallels to the famous Spanish painter

Francisco de Goya Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (; ; 30 March 1746 – 16 April 1828) was a Spanish romantic painter and printmaker. He is considered the most important Spanish artist of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. His paintings, drawings, a ...

. There was also a bilingual Illustrated book published in large format. At the same time, Fabelo showed “Sobrevivientes” ( Survivors), a collection of sculptures of giant cockroaches with human faces. With this he paid his tribute to ''

Franz Kafka Franz Kafka (3 July 1883 – 3 June 1924) was a novelist and writer from Prague who was Jewish, Austrian, and Czech and wrote in German. He is widely regarded as a major figure of 20th-century literature. His work fuses elements of Litera ...

's''

The Metamorphosis ''The Metamorphosis'' (), also translated as ''The Transformation'', is a novella by Franz Kafka published in 1915. One of Kafka's best-known works, ''The Metamorphosis'' tells the story of salesman Gregor Samsa, who wakes to find himself inex ...

. In Zaragossa, an exhibition took place on August 14, 2023, at the Plaza del Pilar, which showed life-size sculptures of rhinos in different colors, as part of Fabelo's series "Sobrevivientes".

Auctions

His works are auctioned at various auction houses such as Christie's, Sotheby's, Phillips de Pury & Company and Bonhams; Christie's alone with 71 pieces. On October 1, 2021, a triptych entitled “The Speech of the Flies” achieved a sales price of $525,000.https://www.christies.com/en/lot/lot-6337581

External links

Individual evidence

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fabelo, Roberto 1951 births Cuban artists Living people National Art Schools (Cuba) alumni