Cuban designer Félix Beltrán, an icon of that art in Latin America, died in Mexico

December 31, 2022

Félix Beltrán Concepción, Cuban design artist and one of the most important Ibero-American designers, died on Wednesday in Mexico, reported the Mexican Association of Typography, of which he was a founding member.

According to Mexican media Tiempo, Beltrán was 84 years old at the time of his death, although the causes of his death are unknown.

Born in 1938 in Havana, he studied at the renowned School of Visual Arts in New York in the 1950s and also completed painting studies at the American Art School. In both, he received the influence of mid-century modernism. He had been residing in Mexico since the 1980s.

Beltrán is considered the father of the Cuban poster and one of the greatest references in Latin American graphic design, although he is not often mentioned on the Island.

Between 1953 and 1956 he was a designer for McCann Erickson Co. Advertising and served as a juror in 1974 for the VI Biennial of Graphic Arts in Czechoslovakia and in 1976 for the VI International Poster Biennial in Zaçheta Gallerand, in Warsaw.

He was also a professor of Graphic Design at the Superior Institute of Industrial Design (ISDI), in Havana, between 1980 and 1982, and at the Superior Institute of Art (ISA), between 1976 and 1982.

His works are displayed in permanent collections at the Art Center, in Louisiana, USA; the Bibliothèque des Arts Decoratifs, in Paris, France; the Danish Museum of Decorative Art, in Copenhagen, Denmark; the Museum of Modern Art of the City of Paris; the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, in Lausanne, Switzerland; the Museum of Latin American Art, in Santiago de Chile; the National Museum of Fine Arts in Havana; and the Pushkin Museum, in Moscow, Russia.

In the 1970s he wrote three fundamental books: Desde el diseño (1970), Letragrafía (1973) and Acerca del diseño (1975), which were and remain references in the history of the discipline. His conceptual approach to graphic design emphasizes simplicity as a fundamental principle of effective visual communication.

He was a full professor at the Metropolitan Autonomous University of Mexico and a visiting professor at the Universidad Altos de Chavón, in the Dominican Republic. He also served as an international advisor to the International Design Conference.

In 1988 he founded the International Graphic Design Archive, the first collection of international graphic design in Latin America. He was an Honorary Member of the Association of Designers of Madrid (DIMAD).

Following news of his death, the magazine a! Diseño remembered him as "a friend and collaborator, always generous, always participatory; there are not enough words to say goodbye to Félix Beltrán. Thank you for sharing, for teaching us so much; thank you for your words of friendship and for your design".

For his part, Cuban artist Hamlet Lavastida wrote on his Facebook wall: "One of the greatest Cuban graphic designers and plastic artists, Félix Beltrán, has just passed away. This incredible human being brought such sophistication to Cuban design that in any design school in Europe, Latin America or Asia they know him (...) Rest in peace, maestro, Cuba and his memory owe you more than one image".