Antonio Vidal Fernández

Born in La Habana in 1928. Painter, engraver, sculptor, draftsman and designer. Member of the Group Los Once and founding member of the Unión de Escritores y Artistas de Cuba. Personality of Centro Habana

He was born in La Habana, son of a Spanish immigrant. He lived a youth marked by living in a family of limited economic resources. He moved forward with the impulse of friends of his generation, such as Fayad Jamis and figures who became personalities of Cuban painting by the mid-century, such as Hugo Consuegra and Guido Llinás and poets frequent to the legendary café Las Antillas and his timely encounter with other young creators belonging to the group Los Once, attracted early on by abstraction. He studied at the Academia Villate.

He held his first exhibition in 1952 with artists such as Guido Llinás, Fayad Jamis, Antonia Eiriz and Manuel Vidal, in the halls of the CTC. However, it was not until the mid-1950s that he defined his characteristic style, abstraction and all its variants such as expressionism, informalism and dripping, to name a few.

Since 1953 he was part of the group Los Once, a name taken after the exhibition Once pintores y escultores jóvenes. Introducer in Cuba of the abstract expressionist movement, a discourse and language that has maintained a coherent and at the same time innovative line.

In the 1960s he participated in the founding of the Taller Experimental de Gráfica and developed a considerable body of works within the lithographic technique. He created pieces for public spaces such as the mosaic murals installed in the Manuel Ascunce Doménech theater in Ciudad Libertad and in the La Época department store.

In the 1970s he began his career as a painting professor at the Escuela Nacional de Arte, a position he held for two decades. In the 1980s he ventured into sculpture, considered as an extension of his papers or canvases. Throughout more than half a century, Antonio Vidal has traveled and matured in the search for his own expressive possibilities, without lending himself to "trends," but in the interest of his plastic discourse.

Exhibitions

Personal
Tintas. Galería Habana, La Habana. 1967
Pinturas. Galería Habana, La Habana. 1991
Sala Imago, Complejo Cultural García Lorca, La Habana.
Collages. Galería Los Vitrales. FCBA, La Habana.
40 años en la plástica. Galería Galiano, La Habana. 1993

Group
CTC Headquarters (with Guido Linás, Antonia Eiriz and Manolo). La Habana. 1952.
Quince pintores y escultores jóvenes. Galería Nuestro Tiempo, La Habana. 1953
Once pintores y escultores jóvenes. Galería La Rampa, La Habana.
Los Once. Pintores y escultores. Lyceum de La Habana, La Habana.
Los Once. Círculo de Bellas Artes, La Habana.
Traveling exhibition. Universidad Central de Las Villas, Santa Clara. 1954
Contrabienal de La Habana. 1955
Contemporary Cuban Group. Galería Sudamericana, New York.
Pinturas y esculturas contemporáneas. Anti-Salón Nacional, La Habana. 1956
Pintura abstracta cubana. Galería Sardio, Caracas, Venezuela. 1957
Salón Nacional. Palacio de Bellas Artes, La Habana. 1959
Pabellón Cuba. Segunda Bienal de México.D.F. 1960
Pintura Contemporánea de Cuba. Caracas, Venezuela.
6ta Bienal de Sao Paolo. Sao Paolo, Brasil. 1961
Salón Nacional. La Habana. 1962
Traveling exhibition to Hecoslovaquia, Rumania, Hungría, Polonia, Bulgaria and Unión Soviética.
Expresionismo abstracto. Galería Habana, La Habana. 1963
Diez pintores cubanos. Traveling exhibition. Austria, Polonia, Italia, Checoslovaquia and Hungría. 1965
Primera Bienal Internacional de Grabado. Cracovia, Polonia. 1966
5ta Bienal Internacional de Grabado de Tokio. Museo de Arte Moderno, Japón.
Exhibition of Contemporary Cuban Paintig. Galerie libre, Montreal, Canadá 1967
Pintura cubana Contemporánea. UNAM, México, DF. 1968
6ta Bienal Internacionalde Grabado de Tokio, Japón.
Pintura cubana Oggi. Inst. Latinoamericano de Roma, Italia.
1er Salón Nacional de Profesores. MN Bellas Artes, La Habana. 1973
3er Salón nacional de Profesores. La Habana. 1975
Arte contemporáneo cubano. Traveling exhibition. Suecia, Dinamarca, Finlandia, Noruega.
Exposición Universal de Sevilla. Pabellón de Cuba, España. 1992
Feria de Arte Cubano. Madrid, España.
Visión de hoy de la Cultura Cubana. Santiago de Chile. 1994
Homenaje a la Cultura Cubana. Lima, Perú.
Guido Llinás and Los Once after Cuba. Miami, Florida, USA 1997
Cien años de pintura cubana 1898- 1998. Niza, Francia
Abstracción viva. Centro Wifredo Lam, La Habana 1998

Main Collections
Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, La Habana. Cuba.
Galería la Acacia, La Habana, Cuba.
Headquarters of the Consejo de Estado de la República de Cuba.
Centers of the Polo Científico de La Habana, Cuba.
Palacio de las Convenciones, La Habana, Cuba.
Diplomatic representations of the República de Cuba abroad.
His works have represented cover designs and illustrations for books and magazines. His drawing notebook Antonio Vidal, 1977, was published by the Editorial UNEAC, La Habana. Creation of medium and large format murals in interior and exterior spaces.

Awards
Second Prize in Painting. Salón de Profesores e Instructores de Artes Plásticas, Escuela Nacional de Arte, La Habana, 1973.
First Salón Nacional de Pequeño Formato, Salón Lalo Carrasco, Hotel Habana Libre, 1981 Mention
Premio Nacional de Artes Plásticas. Ministerio de Cultura, [[Cuba[[. 1999

He was the last of the members of the renowned group Los Once, founding member of the Unión de Escritores y Artistas de Cuba and of the Taller Experimental de la Gráfica Antonio Vidal (La Habana, 1928), passed away on July 30, 2013 in the early morning hours in La Habana, an artist who through his work and his own person, constitutes a testimony of how one of the most broad aesthetic movements in the visual arts of the twentieth century, abstractionism, became creolized with its own characteristics.

The conception of abstractionism in Vidal was born from a legitimate expressive need. In the group exhibitions in which he appeared in the 1950s—in La Habana, New York and Caracas—he began to distinguish himself by the substantive balance between the free handling of forms and order in composition, a paradox that led to intellectually elaborated asymmetries and to plays with line and color where contained emotion was evident. One must not forget that Vidal mastered at the same time painting, engraving, drawing and sculpture.

Critics agree that his moment of artistic maturity ran parallel with the revaluation of abstraction that took place in the Cuban capital in the early sixties. His paintings were then chosen to represent the Island at the VI Bienal de Sao Paulo, at the II Bienal de México and international events in Japón and Polonia.

Eighteen years dedicated to teaching at the Escuela Nacional de Arte made it possible for more than one generation of students to benefit from his guidance and support, but they somewhat distanced Vidal from the panorama of visual arts in the last decades of the last century, although he never stopped painting. However, the very justified awarding of the Premio Nacional de Artes Plásticas in 1999 caused many to turn their attention with renewed vigor toward his work.

On creative expression Vidal stated: "The ideal is that people feel and understand art because art must be understood and felt." And that is what Vidal did throughout his fruitful existence: an art that was both emotional and enigmatic, intelligent and sensitive.