Juan Miguel Rodríguez de la Cruz
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Juan Miguel Rodríguez de la Cruz (February 1902 in Villa Clara, Cuba - 1990 in Havana, Cuba) was a Cuban artist.
He was born in a farm, the son of an illiterate farmer, in Villa Clara, Cuba, on February 1902. He died in Havana, Cuba, in 1990. His major work was developed in ceramics. He graduated as a Doctor of Medicine in the Universidad de La Habana, in the 1920;s. Spent four years of post-graduate work, receiving an internship and resident MD education in Madrid, Paris and Berlin. Participated in a contest and won an appointment as Adjunct Professor of Clinical Therapeutics at the University of Havana School of Medicine, position he enjoyed till early 1960. After WWII, together with Dr. Carlos Ramírez Corría, he invested and managed an industrial ceramic plant in Santiago de las Vegas that was founded in the early 1930s by a Catalonian ceramist. This effort failed, but his interest in ceramics was born.
In the early 1950s he began to acquire true ceramic know how with the help of a Czechoslovakian technician that joined “Industrias Cerámicas Unidas” before it finally failed. He lacked an artistic education but the four years he lived in Europe helped. Thus begins the development of artistic ceramics in Cuba. The great painters of the '50s, Amelia Peláez, Portocarrero, Wilfredo Lam and others joined the effort. Dr. Rodriguez de la Cruz provided the ceramics “know-how” and these well known painters began experimenting with ceramics as an art expression. Eventually he became an artist himself. During this time the remarkable mural by Amelia Peláez with the collaboration of Marta Arjona, Mirta García Buch and Rebeca Robes, was installed in 1953 at the front wall of the former Tribunal de Cuentas building (today Ministerio del Interior) It was designed, painted and baked in Dr. Rodriguez de la Cruz art studio in Santiago de las Vegas. Many of the pieces painted by Amelia Peláez and Rene Portocarrero today are in the hands of private collectors around the world. Later, Amelia Peláez parted company and started a modest artistic ceramic operation of her own. In the eighties he was Technical Advisor in ceramics in the Isla de la Juventud, Cuba.
(Juan Miguel de la Cruz not same person. Dr Rodriguez de la Cruz never lived in the Philippines, hence paragraph was deleted)
Individual Exhibitions
In addition to his life as a medical doctor he participated in various exhibitions of his ceramics art. Many of his pieces were given as gifts to visiting government dignitaries by the Revolutionary Government. Among the exhibits we can be mention the one that took place in 1954 at the Lyceum, Havana, Cuba. In 1982 he presented Rodríguez de la Cruz. Fuego y arte, Galería Amelia Peláez, Havana, Cuba. Finally in 1988 he presented a retrospective exhibition of his works, Galería Plaza Vieja, Fondo Cubano de Bienes Culturales, Havana, Cuba. Today there is an exhibit of his ceramic work and that of other very well known Cuban painters at the Castillo de la Fuerza museum in “old Havana.”
Collective Exhibitions
During his life his pieces was involved in several collective shows as that one celebrated in 1955 under the name Painting, Sculpture, and applied arts of Cuba in Tampa: The progress fair, Tampa, Florida, U.S.A.. In 1986 was displayed Artesanía Cubana 1986, Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Havana, Cuba.