Fernando Velázquez Vigil Tribute Exhibition Opens in Havana

The Museum of Contemporary Ceramics of Cuba has opened the tribute exhibition Fernando Velázquez Vigil: More Spirit Than Matter and presented the book of the same title.

The event was organized to mark what would have been the 76th birthday of Cuban ceramist and painter Fernando Velázquez Vigil (1950–2002). According to a press release, the exhibition features more than 50 works that honor the memory of an artist who transformed pain into form and volume.

The exhibition brings together representative works from his ceramic and pictorial oeuvre, selected from the family archive, which preserves more than 300 pieces. It also includes several landmark works from the collection of the Museum of Contemporary Ceramics of Cuba.

Through this event, the Velázquez family seeks to highlight the artist’s legacy. The initiative is led by his son, David Velázquez, himself a renowned ceramist, who has safeguarded Fernando’s work for more than two decades.

In the book Fernando Velázquez Vigil: More Spirit Than Matter, David Velázquez writes: “Having had the privilege of a father endowed with such unique and unparalleled sensitivity made me a profoundly fortunate man, and above all a deeply grateful one. Velázquez Vigil took immense pleasure in what he did; he was undoubtedly a warrior on his own battlefield.”

The exhibition, which will remain open to the public through August 31, is part of the Office of the Historian of the City of Havana’s program of activities to mark International Museum Day.

The Museum of Contemporary Ceramics of Cuba is located at Calle Mercaderes No. 27, esquina a Amargura, in Old Havana.

Translated by Luis E. Amador Dominguez