Mario Carreño

MARIO JUAN CARREÑO Y MORALES (Havana, Cuba, 1913 - Santiago de Chile, 1999).
Untitled, 1957.
Oil on canvas. Relined.
Work reproduced in the Catalogue of the 1958 exhibition, at the inauguration of the José Martí National Library, Cuba.
Signed and dated in the lower left corner.
Provenance: Collection D. Emeterio Santovenia.
Measurements: 65 x 90 cm; 84 x 110 cm (frame).
In this painting, the composition is organized from a network of curved and intertwined forms that border on abstraction without completely detaching itself from a possible figurative reference. This unstable balance between figuration and abstraction is one of the most characteristic features of Carreño's production in the 1950s, a period in which the artist gradually abandoned the explicit narrative to focus on the plastic construction of space. The forms, which evoke organic architectures or fragmented bodies, seem to fold in on themselves in an almost labyrinthine structure, generating an internal dynamism that guides the viewer's gaze.The palette, dominated by warm tones in tension with deeper blues and greens, reveals a chromatic sensibility inherited from both the Mediterranean tradition and the Caribbean imaginary. The pictorial matter, applied with a dense and textured brushstroke, accentuates the tactile character of the surface, reinforcing the idea of painting as an autonomous object beyond representation.
This plastic language can be understood in relation to the artist's vital context: a creator marked by displacement and cultural hybridity. In 1957, Carreño was already in a process of personal synthesis, in which he integrated international influences without renouncing his own identity.

Mario Carreño was an outstanding Cuban-Chilean painter, recognized with the Chilean National Art Prize in 1982. He began his training at the San Alejandro Academy in Havana, but abandoned his studies early and began working as an illustrator. In 1932 he traveled to Europe to train in Madrid, although he had to leave because of the Spanish Civil War. During these years he befriended Pablo Neruda and became acquainted in Mexico with muralists such as Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco and Rufino Tamayo.
He later lived in Paris and New York, where he developed his artistic and teaching career. In the forties and fifties he alternated stays between Cuba and the United States, even collaborating with David Alfaro Siqueiros. From 1946 he began an important work as a teacher, which he continued in Cuba and, from the late fifties, in Chile, where he settled permanently in 1958. There he actively participated in artistic education, co-founding the Art School of the Catholic University together with Nemesio Antúnez and developing an influential academic career. Nationalized Chilean, Carreño combined his artistic production with teaching and art criticism, establishing himself as a key figure in 20th century Latin American art, with works in museums and international collections.