Eladio Rivadulla Martínez

ONDI National Design Prize 2009 for his life's work. Award as Initiator and Master of Cuban cinematographic poster, November 2008. National Design Prize in its 1st Edition by the Cuban Institute of the Book (ICL) and the Ministry of Culture (MINCULT), 1998.

A professional career of more than 60 years without interruption (1943 / 2011) encompassing visual communication and plastic arts: graphic and editorial design, easel and mural painting, artistic silkscreen printing, sculpture, engraving, drawing, ideological, scientific, sports dissemination and cultural journalism. Artistic direction, design and illustration of scientific books and magazines, newspapers and literature books, education, sciences, engineering, architecture, technologies, sports, press agencies, postage stamps, logos, bonds and bills. Curation of plastic arts exhibitions, graphic design, photography, philately, science, techniques, trade shows and President and member of juries for artistic awards. Recognized as initiator and master since 1943 of the integral production: design and creation through artistic silkscreen printing of cinematographic posters in Cuba.

Author of visual arts articles, editor-designer of publications and of the design and printing through artistic silkscreen of the first posters and ideological billboards of the Cuban Revolution and of diverse cultural genres: films, theater, music, circus, magic, entertainment, dance, cabaret and tourism.

Cultural institutions, historical researchers and national and international critics specialized in visual and artistic communication recognize him for his lifetime work as initiator and master of the Cuban cinematographic poster since 1943 and precursor of Cuban Revolution graphics as creator of the design and printing through artistic silkscreen in the early morning of January 1st, 1959 of the first poster of the Cuban Revolution: FIDEL CASTRO, 26 de JULIO, created when awakened by the telephone ringing and hearing a Martian friend tell him: "Eladio: The tyrant Batista fled" and the emotion and joy received from the revolutionary triumph added to his ideals of the centennial generation of José Martí inspired him to conceive and rapidly create the design and printing through silkscreen with symbolic colors: red and black, around one hundred posters in 92 x 71 cm formats and subsequently give several copies to neighbors who placed them on the doors of their homes with the text: FIDEL: This is YOUR HOUSE and others used on January 8, 1959 to celebrate the Welcome to the Caravan of Freedom as it passed through 23rd Avenue in El Vedado toward the Columbia Barracks.

In early 1959 he designed the first 12 bonds of INAV that replaced the bills of the National Lottery and receives through competitive examination a position as Graphic Designer, Journalist and Plastic Artist in the Ministry of Public Works (MINOP), later called Ministry of Construction (MICONS), where he worked in the Direction of Dissemination and Press until 1967. He began in that Ministry designing the first catalogs, magazines, press information and posters and ideological and cultural billboards of the Revolution, linked with the creation of a silkscreen workshop where he teaches and trains technical personnel for the printing of the first revolutionary ideological disseminations that were placed in the Civic Plaza, later called Revolution Plaza, on a date prior to the foundations of the Commission for Revolutionary Orientation (COR), the DOR and the Political Publishing House.

During nearly nine years in addition to creating, directing and artistically designing magazines, editorial profiles of books and catalogs of architecture, labor improvements, construction techniques and press disseminations, he draws in crayon, ink, watercolor and paints in oil portraits of independence patriots, martyrs of the Revolution and mural paintings, illustrates bulletins, information and conceives and directs curations of pictorial, photographic, sculptural, political exhibitions, stage sets, zoological illustrations, posters for disseminating plastic arts exhibitions, film functions, theatrical, musical, sporting events and enrollments for technical labor and cultural improvements.

Additional Information from 1943 to 2009
Recognized as international precursor of integral production: design and printing through artistic silkscreen of cinematographic posters from 1943 to 1967, for 65 distributors of national and foreign films based in Havana, Cuba, a modality without precedent that he transmits after the revolutionary triumph to the Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry (ICAIC), and becomes a "sui generis" tradition on an international scale, valued and sustained to the present by national cinematography.

During his career as designer and printer in artistic silkscreen, he produces more than 3500 originals of cinematographic posters to nationally disseminate Mexican, Argentine, Cuban, American, Italian, French, Spanish, German, Swedish, Japanese and Chinese films, for 65 distributors that were based in Havana including for PELICUBA, a distributor created in 1960 by the Socialist (Communist) Party to distribute in Cuba productions of socialist films: Soviet, Polish, Czechoslovak, Hungarian, Romanian and Asiatic, for which he produced integrally all of its posters and subsequently the first ones of ICAIC and the Cuban Cinematheque before the foundation in late 1961 of its Advertising and Design Department and then continues collaborating with ICAIC until 1967, through the expansion and technical artistic adequacy required for silkscreen printing in moments of resource scarcity, generated by the American blockade, to expand and materialize hundreds of posters, based on small projects or mockups made by advertising illustrators and painters, sketches that required being enlarged and technically adapted to print them in silkscreen in accordance with the scarcities during the years of his collaboration with ICAIC, inventive solutions sustained in integral experiences of design and printing through silkscreen of cinematographic posters that solve the lack of resources required to materialize first the blocks, then the paints and then the papers essential for materializing the posters of ICAIC cinema and the Cuban Cinematheque. First he substitutes them with kraft paper, then with gift wrapping papers and then with pages of old newspapers and from all of them he leaves the backgrounds unprinted, in which the ocher color of the kraft is seen, the prints of the gift papers, or the texts with classified advertisements published in the newspaper El Mundo, posters that because of their rarities have been highly valued by international cultural institutions and collectors.

Watchful over the clarification and fidelity of the historical memory of the Cuban film poster we should note that the initiative of Eladio Rivadulla, as designer and integral artistic creator in silkscreen during his role as printer of the initial posters of ICAIC, when valued in recent years by international critics specialized, by virtue of the results of the novel printing characteristics added to the design projects, some informants have erroneously attributed the silkscreen solutions to designers who never intervened in the editorial processes.

Posters, pictorial works and specialized articles on Rivadulla's work and artistic, graphic, theoretical and conceptual trajectory are disseminated in newspapers, magazines, books, radio, television and the internet.

He has presented more than one hundred personal exhibitions of painting, book design, film posters, illustrations and participated in more than 300 collective exhibitions in Cuba, United States, Mexico, Argentina, Ecuador, Spain, Germany, France, Italy, Russia, Austria, Japan and China.

He was part of plastic artist groups "Los 5" and "Girón" and designers of Book Art: "Gráfica L".

Selected as President or member of juries in numerous graphic design competitions, book art, painting, drawing and international trade show stands.

He has instructed filmmakers, graphic designers, editors and silkscreen technicians in five institutions (Minop, Micons, ICAIC, FCBC, ICL, ACC), in the creation of silkscreen printing workshops and in the training of magazine editors at the Cuban Academy of Sciences (ACC) and as artistic director and designer of books and periodical publications.

He gives lectures and presentations and his writings related to graphic design and visual arts in Cuba and abroad are published and on the other hand his film, ideological, sports, circus and theatrical posters and paintings are part of collections in different cities of the U.S., Europe, Africa and Asia.

He has received more than 60 Awards in design of posters, magazines, books, painting, drawing and has been honored with more than 30 national and international decorations, distinctions and recognitions, including three from the State Council, from the University of Havana, from the Ministry of Culture, from UPEC, from ACPP, from ICL, from Ecuador, U.S., Austria, Spain, Canada and Germany for his professional career.

Training
He began in 1937 to study Plastic Arts at the school attached to "San Alejandro" and simultaneously: graphic design, editorial design, typography and advertising, with a German professor from the Bauhaus, who emigrated to Cuba when the prestigious institution was closed by the Nazis, who transmitted to him the principles of that School: harmonious union of science, art, industry, function and artistic and technical means of elaboration with economy and aesthetic values, precepts adopted from an early age.

The training received led him to become interested in printing systems, to offer responses to cultural, social and economic needs and to keep in mind that good graphic design should be effective as a means of visual communication, offer artistic values, be attractive in aesthetic aspect, with satisfactory quality and with modest techniques.

At age 15 he already knew various techniques of screen process printing or silkscreen and during periods of student vacations, he prints some pictorial works and cultural disseminations.

Before completing his higher studies of drawing, engraving, perspective, art history, painting and sculpture, at what was then called the National Superior School of Fine Arts "San Alejandro" and graduating in 1943 with the title of: Professor and prizes in all practical classes, he obtains a Painting Prize in a National Competition convened by the Circle of Fine Arts of Havana.

After graduating as Professor of Fine Arts, he receives the title of Professional Advertiser, becomes a journalist and expands his knowledge of Book Art, taught by another German professor from the University of Leipzig.

Then and for more than twenty years he continues expanding his knowledge through attendance at postgraduate courses held at: the University of Havana, National Library, Palace of Fine Arts, National School of Advertising, National College of Drawing, Painting and Modeling Teachers, in different subjects: Methodology of Drawing, Environmental Design, Chinese, Japanese, Nordic, African, French, Pre-Columbian Art, Ballet, Music, Photography, Architecture, Marxism, Labor Judge and others, backed with diplomas, certifications and/or certificates.

Beginning of Professional Career
A cinema lover since childhood, at the age of 19 (1942) he develops a "sui generis" inventive idea without Cuban or international precedent: to design film posters and print them in artistic silkscreen in small quantities and offer them to managers of film distributors based in Havana.

Let us note that from the beginning of cinema to the present, film poster projects are generally originated by film producers and film directors or heads of producers are those who suggest to designers, who generally form part of their payroll as salaried employees or occasional collaborating painters what is required and subsequently order the reproduction of approved designs to offset lithography printers.

Without prior orders or contracts, it occurs to Rivadulla to create in 1942 : five film poster projects to promote films starring actors and actresses of great popularity, but that lacked printed posters, because they were new copies of old films.

He conceives the five posters to promote two Mexican films interpreted by Jorge Negrete and Dolores del Rio, two Argentine ones by Carlos Gardel and Libertad Lamarque and one American one for the Tarzan series, which indistinctly starred two actors: Johnny Weissmuller and Herman Brix. He designs all five with bright colors and in "one sheet" format: 74 x 92 cm.

In the four Latin American cinematographic poster projects the images of each actor or actress appear oversized and with spaces reserved without printing in the lower part and without film titles, so that the distributors would use the posters to promote different films of each actor, through subsequent lettering of their titles.

In the design of the Tarzan poster created in 1942, neither the image of Johnny Weissmuller nor that of Herman Brix, the starring actors of that series of Tarzan movies and episodes appear. In this case the creator decides to appropriate a vignette from American "comics" and make a version, in the same way that in later decades the artists of "pop art" and postmodernism did.

And, since no actor's image appears, it is possible to use the printed posters to promote different films of both protagonists, an initiative that helps reduce printing costs and prices for distributors.

He shows the projects to several managers of distributors who look pleased at the original designs, but distrust the final quality of the silkscreen prints, because in those years no one had seen in Cuba or other countries film posters created through silkscreen.

For that reason at first he does not obtain printing orders, despite favorable opinions about the design of the posters and their economic advantages.

Nevertheless he continues his efforts and in 1943 obtains the first orders for film posters.

In this way the production of film posters begins in Cuba in an integral manner: design and simultaneous printing through silkscreen, a singularity that over time becomes a tradition sustained in Cuba to the present by ICAIC.

From 1959 to 1992 he contributes to the training, teaching and instruction of numerous graphic artists, silkscreen technicians and designers of books, magazines, tabloids, catalogs, press advertisements and dissimilar publications at Minop, Micons, Academy of Sciences of Cuba and several publishing houses of the Cuban Institute of the Book from its foundation in 1967.

As mentioned he advises in 1959 the creation of a silk screen workshop, where the first billboards of the Cuban Revolution are printed and later those of ICAIC and FCBC. Simultaneously, he continues painting, exhibiting and winning prizes in National Drawing and Painting Salons convened by the Circle of Fine Arts.

Various Creations
He paints portraits, murals, landscapes, drawings and creative paintings and wins first prizes in National Salons of Plastic Arts. He presents personal exhibitions of pictorial works and graphic design in Cuba and abroad, participates in collective exhibitions of three disciplines. He wins prizes. He writes specialized texts and teaches knowledge of design, painting and silkscreen. His works are found in collections in America, Europe, China and Africa.

At his death:
Although his work was vast and moved in several directions, there was one work that marked Eladio Rivadulla forever; the poster that circulated in the first days of 1959 with the image of Commander in Chief Fidel Castro and the attributes of the 26 de Julio Movement.

Master in the arts of visual communication, recognized with the National Design Prize awarded by ONDI in 2009, Rivadulla died on March 28, 2011 in Havana, the city where he was born 87 years before.

About that emblematic work of his he recounted: "I made it in the first hours of the new year of 1959, when I received confirmation of the tyrant's flight and the mobilization of the Militias of the 26 de Julio in the capital towards the police stations and the Prince's Castle. There was so much emotion that in the little workshop where I worked silkscreen I got to work. Among the images I had hidden of Fidel Castro, I chose one of those published in the interview that journalist Herbert L. Matthews conducted with him in the Sierra. I drew it and cut it in 92 x 67 cm format. I printed a first series of one hundred copies. Later I had to reproduce it, given the propaganda use of the poster."

In those times, the experience that Rivadulla possessed in advertising graphics was put at the service of the Revolution. He designed the bonds of the National Institute of Savings and Housing, at the request of Pastorita Núñez; the sticker that read Fidel: this is your house, and the posters announcing the conversion of barracks into schools.

Over the course of the four subsequent decades, the master created dozens of posters for cinema and the promotion of other cultural expressions; worked intensively in book design; and devoted a great deal of his time to teaching.

All of this based on the exemplary exercise of modesty. In the Cuban artistic milieu, Rivadulla endeared himself.