Rogelio Puente

ROGELIO PUENTE (Cuba, 1936-1996).
Interior from the window.
Oil on canvas.
Signed in the lower right corner.
Measures: 37 x 55 cm; 53 x 70 cm (frame).
In a masterly play of reflections, Rogelio Puente displays a skilful and intelligent overlapping of realities and projections. Through the glass we see a shelf with pieces of porcelain and other objects from the interior of an antique shop, with paintings leaning against a sculpture of an angelote torchero playing between the real and the represented, while the facades of the adjacent buildings make us doubt whether they are reflected on the glass moon or whether they are actually on the same pavement. In addition, alongside this playful neo-baroque adventure, Puente describes every detail, every tactile quality, with a precious eagerness, making use of his skill in drawing, glazes and material treatment.
Rogelio Puente Díaz de la Rocha was born in Havana into a wealthy Spanish family living in Cuba. His impeccable academic training took place in the Caribbean country, Canada and the United States. At the age of fourteen he moved definitively to Spain with his family, settling in La Coruña, where he continued his studies. He studied law in Santiago de Compostela and later completed his studies in England. He then moved to Madrid and it was there, delighting in the masterpieces that the Prado Museum unveiled to him, that his artistic interests took hold and he began to reflect seriously on the plastic solutions required for his pictorial proposals. He travelled to Italy and France in search of new artistic references, both classical and contemporary. He studied the first two years of Architecture and later four years of Decorative Arts. From 1976 onwards he begins a successful career of exhibitions and artistic prizes, starting with his participation in the Biennial of Pontevedra, held that same year. He collaborated in the National Painting Exhibition in Bilbao and in the Circulo de Bellas Artes in Madrid. He exhibited in various galleries in Galicia and in different American countries such as Brazil, Mexico, the Dominican Republic and Argentina, as well as in France and New York.Rogelio Puente is an evoker of atmospheres and a magnificent portraitist. With a serene and solid personality, he faithfully and with dignity maintained a realist line, even though he understood that he was living in the era of the awakening of Galician painting to formal innovations and to a more conceptual and committed art.