about Nicolas Delgado...
- ^ Mouial, Gérald. “Magic Art in Cuba: 51 Cuban Painters, Naïve, Ingenuous, Primitive, Popular, Spontaneous, Intuitive…” Ciudad de la Habana: Artecubano; National Council of the Visual Arts of Cuba. 2004:15
Nicolás Delgado CUBAN INTUITION
By Jerry Alan
Flamboyant yet philosophical and practical, artist, illustrator, photographer and philosopher, Nicolás Delgado, is well known in the Havana art community and around the world. For art lovers and those familiar with intuitive (also known as primitive naive) painting, the maestro Delgado is one of Cuba's best. Late in 2011, he passed away at 75 years old.
Nicolás has gifted to those who have had the good fortune to view or own a painting or photograph made by him (and there are many from this prolific artist) a glimpse into another universe. Galaxies of space machines, monsters, freaks, religious deities and the sick, expressing a myriad of emotions and symbols lushly populate the scraps of card stock, the backs of calenders, cheap paper, cardboard and even high quality canvass that he has painted. Aboriginal Tainos, cannibal Caribs and even Aztecs are common. Time machines, spacemen and weird animals are splashed across the creations.
Born in Villa Clara in 1936, Delgado was friends with the famous Cuban painter, Victor Manuel. This later influenced his decision to change professions from photographer to painter. He was in his fifties when he began to paint in earnest. Previously, as a photographer, Nicolás Delgado took the first pictures of Ché Guevara, the famous Argentine Cuban revolutionary, when the guerrilla fighter first entered Havana.
Havana, Cuba provides the inspiration for Nicolas paintings. Beautiful and lively yet rich in history, the capital is also rich in tradition and a fusion of religion. Cuba, a developing country, is an Island peninsula, eighty kilometers south of Florida. It is the largest and richest Island of the Greater Antilles. Colonial architecture, now in the midst of restoration is a unique mix of Spanish, French, English, Italian and North American influences from the past four hundred years.
The sounds of ancient African drum beats often fill the balmy sub-tropical night air. From his location in Old Havana, Nicolás Delgado was in the midst of a most favorable artistic environment. In the 1950’s, Ernest Hemingway worked only two blocks from Delgado’s doorstep and it was normal to see the famous writer walking along Obispo or O'Reilly Streets. Nicolás was a professional photographer until changing mediums in his early fifties. He often awoke from dreams to capture and interpret the images on paper. His larger canvass paintings were more thought out, often more concerned with color and composition while smaller paper, plastic film and card stock paintings were spontaneous and contained his most unusual visions.
The majority of Delgado's work is on a smaller medium. Most work was painted on paper, in acrylic or oil. The quality of the paper varies. The quality of the paintings varies as well. As much as seventy-five of one-hundred paintings are hurried ideas with little artistic value. As much as twenty-five percent of his paintings are near masterpieces of balance, color, composition and symbolism. Phenomenon, fantasy, fear, spirits and other dimensions broke free of conventional restraints as the artist melded the world of demons and angels, Santeria and Cuban spiritualism, with his own fantastic dreams.
Favorites of Nicolás Delgado were spaceships, space monsters, astronauts, time portals and other dimensional monsters. He continued to work without let-up, often running out of materials, until the last month of his life. He was hospitalized in the fall of 2011 with a stroke and again in the winter, dying from multiple organ failure. He is survived by his wife, his daughter Sylvia and grand daughter Claudia. Both Sylvia and Claudia are artists.
Some of Nicolas' works were painted on the backs of magazine covers, cereal boxes, industrial photographic film, and whatever he could find. Awarded and exhibited in Cuba and around the world, the artist’s prolific output did not abate.
Since meeting Nicolás Delgado in 2007 this writer has looked at hundreds of his paintings and this question is still on my mind: What is the significance of this outpouring of visions, thoughts and ideas? Part of the problem was understanding the fast talking, idiom-filled Havana Spanish but even with a translation the wily Delgado often responded with questions himself: “What do you see?”; “What do you think?”
I once inquired about a painting I had purchased some time before. “It’s a portal to another dimension,” he said. “No, really- look here,” he said, pointing at what looked like a kind of window. This painting, on cheap paper, is now under non-reflective glass, neatly framed with thin black plastic, and hangs on the solarium wall at my mother’s home in Vancouver, Canada. Whenever I visit I always take the time to look at the 'portal'- I always see something different- beautiful and dramatic…
Depictions of time machines, dimensional and time portals, unbelievable and dramatic visions of futuristic splendor are standard fare in Delgado paintings. There is no surprise that Nicolás chose to depict these phenomena in paintings, as words would be ineffective….
Nicolas Delgado is featured in Gérald Mouial’s excellent book, “Magic Art in Cuba”. The book provides a thorough interview of the painter, his views on painting, photography and his philosophy.
“The caveman is a testimony to his time.” - Nicolás Delgado, Magic Art in Cuba
© Cuban Art Warehouse
Please feel free to use this article or excerpts with the annotation: J. Billstrom at the end of the quote. Thank you.
Flamboyant yet philosophical and practical, artist, illustrator, photographer and philosopher, Nicolás Delgado, is well known in the Havana art community and around the world. For art lovers and those familiar with intuitive (also known as primitive naive) painting, the maestro Delgado is one of Cuba's best. Late in 2011, he passed away at 75 years old.
Nicolás has gifted to those who have had the good fortune to view or own a painting or photograph made by him (and there are many from this prolific artist) a glimpse into another universe. Galaxies of space machines, monsters, freaks, religious deities and the sick, expressing a myriad of emotions and symbols lushly populate the scraps of card stock, the backs of calenders, cheap paper, cardboard and even high quality canvass that he has painted. Aboriginal Tainos, cannibal Caribs and even Aztecs are common. Time machines, spacemen and weird animals are splashed across the creations.
Born in Villa Clara in 1936, Delgado was friends with the famous Cuban painter, Victor Manuel. This later influenced his decision to change professions from photographer to painter. He was in his fifties when he began to paint in earnest. Previously, as a photographer, Nicolás Delgado took the first pictures of Ché Guevara, the famous Argentine Cuban revolutionary, when the guerrilla fighter first entered Havana.
Havana, Cuba provides the inspiration for Nicolas paintings. Beautiful and lively yet rich in history, the capital is also rich in tradition and a fusion of religion. Cuba, a developing country, is an Island peninsula, eighty kilometers south of Florida. It is the largest and richest Island of the Greater Antilles. Colonial architecture, now in the midst of restoration is a unique mix of Spanish, French, English, Italian and North American influences from the past four hundred years.
The sounds of ancient African drum beats often fill the balmy sub-tropical night air. From his location in Old Havana, Nicolás Delgado was in the midst of a most favorable artistic environment. In the 1950’s, Ernest Hemingway worked only two blocks from Delgado’s doorstep and it was normal to see the famous writer walking along Obispo or O'Reilly Streets. Nicolás was a professional photographer until changing mediums in his early fifties. He often awoke from dreams to capture and interpret the images on paper. His larger canvass paintings were more thought out, often more concerned with color and composition while smaller paper, plastic film and card stock paintings were spontaneous and contained his most unusual visions.
The majority of Delgado's work is on a smaller medium. Most work was painted on paper, in acrylic or oil. The quality of the paper varies. The quality of the paintings varies as well. As much as seventy-five of one-hundred paintings are hurried ideas with little artistic value. As much as twenty-five percent of his paintings are near masterpieces of balance, color, composition and symbolism. Phenomenon, fantasy, fear, spirits and other dimensions broke free of conventional restraints as the artist melded the world of demons and angels, Santeria and Cuban spiritualism, with his own fantastic dreams.
Favorites of Nicolás Delgado were spaceships, space monsters, astronauts, time portals and other dimensional monsters. He continued to work without let-up, often running out of materials, until the last month of his life. He was hospitalized in the fall of 2011 with a stroke and again in the winter, dying from multiple organ failure. He is survived by his wife, his daughter Sylvia and grand daughter Claudia. Both Sylvia and Claudia are artists.
Some of Nicolas' works were painted on the backs of magazine covers, cereal boxes, industrial photographic film, and whatever he could find. Awarded and exhibited in Cuba and around the world, the artist’s prolific output did not abate.
Since meeting Nicolás Delgado in 2007 this writer has looked at hundreds of his paintings and this question is still on my mind: What is the significance of this outpouring of visions, thoughts and ideas? Part of the problem was understanding the fast talking, idiom-filled Havana Spanish but even with a translation the wily Delgado often responded with questions himself: “What do you see?”; “What do you think?”
I once inquired about a painting I had purchased some time before. “It’s a portal to another dimension,” he said. “No, really- look here,” he said, pointing at what looked like a kind of window. This painting, on cheap paper, is now under non-reflective glass, neatly framed with thin black plastic, and hangs on the solarium wall at my mother’s home in Vancouver, Canada. Whenever I visit I always take the time to look at the 'portal'- I always see something different- beautiful and dramatic…
Depictions of time machines, dimensional and time portals, unbelievable and dramatic visions of futuristic splendor are standard fare in Delgado paintings. There is no surprise that Nicolás chose to depict these phenomena in paintings, as words would be ineffective….
Nicolas Delgado is featured in Gérald Mouial’s excellent book, “Magic Art in Cuba”. The book provides a thorough interview of the painter, his views on painting, photography and his philosophy.
“The caveman is a testimony to his time.” - Nicolás Delgado, Magic Art in Cuba
© Cuban Art Warehouse
Please feel free to use this article or excerpts with the annotation: J. Billstrom at the end of the quote. Thank you.