José Loreto Horruitiner

José Loreto Horruitiner is a painter, art professor and distinguished son of Santiago de Cuba. He approaches landscape as a concrete expression. The structure of his works is strongly emphasized by thick brushstrokes that allude to a material universe akin to his colorist condition.

Hourritiner was born in Tívoli. He was an outstanding student from 1949 to 1956 at the provincial academy José Joaquín Tejada, in the fields of painting, graphic drawing and set design, engraving, sculpture and ceramics.

Upon graduating, he formed the faculty of that institution, and was also a founder of several cultural projects of the Cuban intellectual avant-garde.

Since 1970 he has belonged to the Technical Advisory Council of the Department of Culture in Santiago de Cuba. He is a member of the Caguayo Foundation for Monumental and Applied Arts.

For his extensive and distinguished artistic work, he was considered one of the "five jewels of Santiago plastic arts," alongside José Julián Aguilera, Miguel Ángel Botalín, Lincoln Camué and Luis Mariano Frómeta, all now deceased.

Distinctions
For National Culture
Raúl Gómez García
September 28 Medal
Laureate Seal
José María Heredia Plaque

Style
When he draws inspiration from Cuba within the Caribbean, he amplifies it in blue in all its tones, and when he delves into the everyday life of his people, imagination takes flight in such a way that it resembles the Black Quixote.

He maintains ties with the plastic avant-garde that stems from Cézanne, and there is talk of Baroque style due to the abundance of images, lines and colors. His city is the one besieged by the Caribbean Sea, and the jumble of figures describes the irregularity of the urban fabric. It, due to aggressive color, cubic forms, immanent light, the planimetry of syntax, turns out to be aggressive, violent, harsh and oppressive like Santiago de Cuba under the summer sun.