Tomás Sánchez Requeiro

Cuban painter and engraver with an affinity for the pictorial genre of landscape painting. He was able to elevate landscape to stellar planes; when this element was considered exhausted in its possibilities, lacking in relevance and without a promising future. Tomás demonstrates the contrary in his daily work by creating new and unsuspected worlds, because, each day more people enjoy acquiring and contemplating his paintings, where the experiences of his pictorial universe have been captured.

Sánchez is a calm and serene man. He meditates every day. He lives in Costa Rica where he arrived to "hide away". He is simply an artist who aims to express himself through his multiple resources as a draftsman, sculptor, designer and, especially, as a painter.

Tomás lives in Escazú, in Costa Rica, where he not only found the refuge he was looking for, but much more than that: "This is a little paradise. I wanted to go to the parks, to the coasts, to see the variations of the forests. Few countries have what Costa Rica has and it is its diversity in such a small space".

Tomás Sánchez was born in Aguada de Pasajeros, current province of Cienfuegos. He is the eldest of two children in a middle-class family; his father was a sugar worker and merchant and he shared with his mother a sensitivity for artistic painting.

At age 16, in 1964, he studied at the School of Plastic Arts of San Alejandro in Havana, Cuba, and later at the National School of Art (ENA) in Havana where he graduated in 1971. The year of his graduation he won the First Prize for Drawing at the National Salon for Young Artists.

From his graduation until 1976 Tomás Sánchez remained at the National School of Art as a professor and Head of the Engraving Department; in 1975 he won the First Prize in Painting and the First Prize in Lithography at the III National Salon of Professors and Instructors of Plastic Arts in Havana. He joined the Puppet Workshop of the Theater Department of the Ministry of Culture with the appointment of scenographic designer and puppet designer for Children's Theater; he also was part of the UNESCO Puppet Group, which introduced him, until 1978, into a completely different universe from his work up to that moment.

In 1980 he participates in the XIX Edition of the Joan Miró International Drawing Prize, which was awarded to him for his work "From the White Waters" and thus begins his meteoric international career. The following year he exhibits at the Joan Miró Foundation, Centre de'Estudis d'Art Contemporani in Barcelona, Spain.

Other important recognitions in his career are: National Prize for Painting, I Havana Biennial in 1984; Medal at the V American Graphic Art Biennial, Cali, Colombia, 1986 and Honorable Mention, I International Painting Biennial, Cuenca, Ecuador in 1987.

His work has been exhibited individually and collectively in more than 30 countries. Among his most significant personal exhibitions are: Tomás Sánchez. Retrospective at the National Museum of Fine Arts, Havana, Cuba in 1985; Tomás Sánchez. Different Worlds at the Museum of Art, Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, USA, in 1996 and the celebration of his 60th anniversary in May 2008 with a major retrospective exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Monterrey, Mexico.

Coming from a generation with poetics as compelling as those of Zaida del Río, Roberto Fabelo, Nelson Domínguez, Pedro Pablo Oliva; Tomás Sánchez managed to particularize his own and impose himself with persistence despite the passage of time, changing fashions and the different trends that have been established, such as installation, bad painting, plastic actions or new perspectives on academia.

The splendor of his landscapes goes beyond his meticulousness and perfectionism, beyond absolute submission to the techniques he masters. He has managed to incorporate singular life into them and with it different discourses that respond to the broad audiences who access his monumental work, according to each admirer's life experience.

His paintings, validated throughout the planet, individually, have been exhibited in the most important art galleries in the world such as; Joan Miró Foundation, Barcelona; National Museum of Fine Arts of Havana; the House of Culture in Prague; City Hall Gallery, in Cyprus; the Hispano-American Center of Athens; the Exp. Art Gallery of Panama City; The Gallery of the Siempre Habana and Arvil of Mexico; the Museum of Art of FT. Lauderdale, to name just a few recognized spaces.

Tomás Sánchez is the Cuban artist with the greatest international presence; his landscapes are different representations of emotional states, at a moment of great neglect of our spiritual sphere, an artist of high quality and innovation, he has become one of the most prestigious Cuban authors.

Awards

1987

Honorable Mention, Ecuador 1st International Painting Biennial, Cuenca,

1986

Medal, American V Biennial of Graphic Arts, Cali, Colombia

1984

National Prize for Painting, 1st Biennial of Havana, Havana, Cuba

1980

First Prize in Painting, First National Landscape Competition Leopoldo Romannach, Guantánamo, Cuba
Joan Miró XIX International Drawing Prize, Barcelona, Spain

1975

First Prize in Painting and Lithography, Third Salon of Professors and Instructors of Plastic Arts, Havana, Cuba

1971

First Prize in Drawing, National Salon of Young Artists, Havana, Cuba

Personal Exhibitions

2010

Tomás Sánchez in Focus, Cernuda Arte, Coral Gables, Florida, United States.

2008

Tomás Sánchez, Museum of Contemporary Art of Monterrey, Monterrey, Mexico.

2005

Tomás Sánchez, Marlborough Gallery, New York, New York, United States.

2003

Tomás Sánchez: Works on Paper, Marlborough Gallery, New York, New York, United States.

2001

Tomás Sánchez - Recent Works, FIAC, Paris, France.
Tomás Sánchez: Recent Works, Marlborough Gallery, Madrid, Spain.

1999

Tomás Sánchez: new paintings and drawings, Marlborough Gallery, New York, New York, United States.

1997

Tomás Sánchez - Works on Paper, Jorge M. Sorí Fine Art, Coral Gables, Florida, United States.

1996

Tomás Sánchez: different worlds, Fort Lauderdale Museum of Art, Florida, United States.

1995

Tomás Sánchez and Ramón Alejandro, Weiss / Bellas Artes Sorí, Coral Gables, Florida, United States.
Tomás Sánchez Recent Works Weiss, / Bellas Artes Sorí, Coral Gables, Florida, United States.

1994

Paintings Tomás Sánchez, PEMEX Gallery, Mexico City, Mexico.

1993

Tomás Sánchez, Andrés Puig - From Cuba to Cuba: Art as a Bridge, Cuban Museum of Art and Culture, Miami, Florida, United States.

1989

Fifteen works by Tomás Sánchez, Arvil Gallery, Mexico City, Mexico.
Landscapes by Tomás Sánchez, Expoarte Gallery, Panama City, Panama.

1988

Landscapes by Tomás Sánchez, Expoarte Gallery, Panama City, Panama.
Paintings by Catalina Requeiro and Tomás Sánchez, from San Gallery del Padrón and Gallery, Havana, Cuba Miguel.

1987

Relations of Tomás Sánchez, Provincial Center of Plastic Arts and Design, Havana, Cuba

1985

Tomás Sánchez - Oils, Servando Cabrera Moreno Gallery, Havana, Cuba.
Tomás Sánchez Retrospective, National Museum of Fine Arts, Havana, Cuba.

1983

Drawings by Tomás Sánchez, Union of Visual Artists of Moscow, Moscow, Soviet Union.

1981

Drawings by Tomás Sánchez, Joan Miró Foundation, Barcelona, Spain.

1980

Landscapes and puppets by Tomás Sánchez, Ceramic Workshop, Lenin Park, Havana, Cuba.

1979

Temperas by Tomás Sánchez, House of Culture, Havana, Cuba.
Tomás Sánchez Landscapes, Galiano and Concordia Art Gallery, Havana, Cuba.

1974

Paintings and Engravings by Tomás Sánchez, Gallery L, Havana, Cuba.

Selection of Group Exhibitions

2009

10th Havana Biennial: Integration and Resistance in the Global Age, Wilfredo Lam, Center for Contemporary Art, Havana, Cuba.
Summer 2009 Exhibition, Marlborough Gallery, New York, New York, United States.

2008

Collective Exhibition, Mónaco Marlborough, Monte Carlo, Monaco.
Latin American Art, Marlborough Gallery, New York, New York, United States.
Intact Bonds: Dialogues in Cuban Art, Fort Lauderdale Museum of Art, Florida, United States.

2007

Summer 2007 Exhibitions, Marlborough Gallery, New York, New York, United States.

2006

Intact Bonds - Dialogues in Cuban Art, Museum of American Art molaa América, Long Beach, California, United States.

2005

Works on Paper, Marlborough Gallery, New York, New York, United States.

2001

Art of the Americas. Collections in Costa Rica, Museum of Costa Rican Art, San José, Costa Rica.

2000

Island of Editions: Cuban Graphics from two Workshops of Havana, Spanish Cultural Center in Lima, Peru. October-November

1999

Alter Ego: Inaugural Exhibition, Dalai Paula Gallery, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. September

1991

The Cubans Have Already Arrived, Ninart Cultural Center, Mexico City, Mexico.

1989

Collective Exhibition, III Havana Biennial, Havana, Cuba.
Havana in Madrid, Cultural Center of the City of Madrid (City Hall), Madrid, Spain.

1988

Cuban Painting from the Jaime Guash Foundation, Madrid, Spain.

1973

First National Salon of Professors and Instructors of Plastic Arts, National Museum of Fine Arts, Havana, Cuba. August

1970

Exhibition of Drawings and Temperas, Gallery L, Havana, Cuba. August 28