José María Mijares

JOSE MARIA MIJARES (Havana, 1921-2004).
"Head", c. 1980.
Oil on canvas.
Attached certificate issued by Mrs. María A. Cabrera (widow of Mijares).
Signed in the lower left corner.
Measurements: 122 x 90 cm; 150 x 118 cm (frame).
This painting evidences the maturity of the artist in his post-exile stage, when his work reached a remarkable compositional freedom without renouncing formal rigor. It shows Mijares' aspiration to build a balanced art between emotion and reason, between the memory of the Cuban environment and the universality of abstract language. Mijares articulates a dynamic and structured composition, dominated by a large circular shape in blue tones that seems to expand from the center to the edges of the canvas. The black lines, with a firm and continuous stroke, delimit planes of color that intertwine like cells or gears, generating an internal movement that simultaneously suggests tension and harmony. The precision of the geometric forms is combined with an almost biomorphic expressiveness, evidencing the artist's interest in reconciling rational order with the freedom of plastic gesture.
Color plays an essential role: deep blues and violets, modulated with soft gradations, establish a visual dialogue with yellow, red and turquoise accents, which bring vibration and contrast. This palette reveals the Caribbean imprint of Mijares, who manages to translate tropical luminosity into an abstract language of universal projection.
Mijares, considered one of the great 20th century Cuban and Latin American artists, studied at the San Alejandro National School of Fine Arts in Havana, where he taught. Among his teachers were Romanach, Menocal, Valderrama, Ramon Loy, Caravia and others. It was Mijares himself who recognized that one of his most influential teachers was Ponce, who helped him develop his own style of expression. He was a member of the group Diez Pintores Concretos. Between 1968 and 1973 he was a member of Grupo Gala in Miami, where he settled at the age of 47. He directed Alacrán Azul magazine in Miami. He held his first exhibition at the Havana Lyceum (1947). In the eighties he exhibited in Coral Gables, Florida, where he reiterated his presence. In 1994 the Cuban Museum of Art and Culture of Miami dedicated a retrospective to him. Also the Alfredo Martinez Gallery of Coral Gables would organize an ontological one in 1996. As for group exhibitions, it is worth mentioning his participation in the Venice Biennial of 1952. He is represented at the Cintas Foundation in New York, the Loewe Art Museum, Florida; the Museum of Modern Art of Latin America in Washington, D.C., and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Mijares' well-deserved recognition came mainly from knowing how to harmonize his universal vocation with the search for an autochthonous Cuban language. His works are characterized by illustrating a personal, expressive artistic style, with a special poetics that values at the same time the versatility of his plastic resources and an exquisite sensitivity in handling different themes. Sometimes starting from a colorful postcubism through which he practically enters into abstraction but without losing the referential thread. The Florida International University awarded Mijares an honorary doctorate in fine arts in December 2001. In 2002, he opened the Mijares Gallery in Coral Gables, where his latest works were exhibited.