Félix Juan Alberto Beltrán Concepción

Cuban graphic designer and visual artist, considered the "father of Cuban poster design" and a prominent reference in graphic design in Latin America. He had an important career as a graphic designer, painter, draftsman, and engraver.

Born in Havana into a humble family, with a mechanic father and homemaker mother, both opposed to the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista. Despite having an early interest in psychiatry, his aptitude for drawing earned him a position as a designer at the McCann Erickson Co. advertising agency, where he worked between 1953 and 1956.

He studied in the United States between 1956 and 1960, studying graphic design, painting, and lithography at the School of Visual Arts, New School for Social Research, and Pratt Graphic Art Center in New York. He has extensive professional experience, having worked in different publications and institutions. Between 1953 and 1956 he was a designer for McCann Erickson Co. Advertising and was a juror in 1974 of the VI Biennial of Graphic Arts in Czechoslovakia and in 1976 of the VI International Biennial of Posters at Zaçheta Gallerand, Warsaw, Poland.

From there he traveled to New York, where he earned his diploma from the School of Visual Arts and the American Art School, in addition to studying at the Art Students League in the same city. There he received the influence of modernism of the era, such as the techniques of Saul Bass, as well as French poster design by Raymond Savignac and Swiss graphic design by creators such as Josef Müller-Brockmann.

However, drawing from these influences, he managed to develop his own style based on simplicity as the foundation of effective visual communication.

In 1962 he returned to Cuba and, together with designers such as Eduardo Muñoz Bachs, Antonio Pérez, Raúl Martínez, and Alfredo Rostgaard, directed the Commission for Revolutionary Orientation (COR), an advertising office in charge of creating posters and advertising pieces for the revolutionary government of Fidel Castro.

Together with this team, he created iconic pieces of political posters and Cuban poster design such as the duotone illustration of Che Guevara (based on the photograph by Alberto Korda) or the campaign for the liberation of Angela Davis.

Alongside his creative work, in 1963 he began his career as a teacher of graphic design and industrial design, a profession that would accompany him for the rest of his life. He was curator of International Graphic Archive at the Metropolitan Autonomous University. He was also a professor of Graphic Design at the Superior Institute of Industrial Design (ISDI) (1980-1982), Superior Institute of Art (ISA) (1976–1982), in Havana, Cuba; at the Institute of Higher Studies of Tamaulipas and the Iberoamerican University in Mexico. Currently, he is a professor at the Metropolitan Autonomous University also in Mexico.

Between 1965 and 1966 he returned to his studies, this time at the Circle of Fine Arts in Madrid. In 1974 he was elected as a juror of the VI Biennial of Graphic Arts in Czechoslovakia, and two years later he did the same at the VI International Biennial of Posters at Zaçheta Gallerand, Warsaw.

Since 1982 he lived in Mexico City, where he founded the Artis Gallery in 1988 and later the first International Graphic Design Archive of Latin America at the Metropolitan Autonomous University. In 1989 he founded the Códice Gallery of the National Institute of Fine Arts.

His list of awards included being an Honorary member of the Mexican Academy of Design, Honorary member of the Association of Madrid Designers (DIMAD), an Honorary Doctorate in design awarded by the International University Foundation of Delaware and another from the Autonomous University of San Luis Potosí. As of 2021, his works had been part of 66 individual exhibitions and 456 collective exhibitions.

He died at age 84 on December 28, 2022 in Mexico, without the causes of his death being made public.

Published Books

From Design (Havana, 1970)
Lettergraphy (Havana, 1973)
About Design (Havana, 1975)
Félix Beltrán. Always Design (Madrid, 2022) (Compilation of the three previous books, edited by Sonia Díaz and Gabriel Martínez)

His personal exhibitions include: in 1971 "Symbols of Félix Beltrán" at the National Museum of Fine Arts in Havana, Havana, Cuba; "Exhibition Hall Ruski Avenue," in Sofia, Bulgaria, and after 1990 he held "Deconstructive Paintings by Félix Beltrán" in different galleries in Mexico City, such as Frida Kahlo Gallery, Santos Balmori Gallery, Artis Gallery, and Trazo Gallery.

He also participated in many collective exhibitions such as one in 1960 at New Gallery, New York, USA. In 1966 at the Gutenberg Museum, Frankfurt, Germany; International Marks Exhibition, New York, USA, and in "Cuban Posters" at the Musée d'Art et Industrie, Paris, France. Other exhibitions were held at the Biennial of Latin American Graphic Arts and at the Museum of Contemporary and Hispanic Art (MOCHA) in New York, in 1986. His work also appears in the collection of the Center for Studies of Political Graphics.

During his lifetime he obtained many awards and recognition such as the American Institute and Graphic Art Prize at the National Exhibition of Communication Arts, California, United States in 1962; Prize International Posters Challenge Moscow 88 Havana, Cuba.

In 1981 he was an Honorary Member of the Mexican Academy of Design and College of Industrial and Graphic Designers and International University Foundation of Delaware.

His work can be found in permanent collections of:

Art Center, Louisiana.
Bibliothèque des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, France.
Danish Museum of Decorative Art, Copenhagen, Denmark.
Museum of Modern Art of the City of Paris, Paris, France.
Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Lausanne, Switzerland.
Museum of Latin American Art, Santiago de Chile, Chile.
National Museum of Fine Arts of Havana.
Pushkin Museum, Moscow, Russia.