They mourn in Cuba the death of Pedro de Oraá, 2015 Plastic Arts Award recipient

August 26, 2020

The renowned painter, poet, narrator, critic, journalist and editor Pedro de Oraá, 2015 National Prize for Plastic Arts, passed away this Tuesday in the largest of the Antilles.

On his official Facebook page, the National Council of Plastic Arts (CNAP) highlighted him as the last of the great masters of concretism to obtain the most important award of that specialty in Cuba.

The work of Pedro de Oraá is a symbol of a necessary moment in Cuban art of the twentieth century, a period in which abstraction and concretism did not figure in the history of Cuban art since it is not until the middle of the last century that abstraction acquires connotation in our country when a group of Cuban creators constitute the group Los Once, the publication states.

According to the statement, details of the funeral services will be announced shortly.

Pedro de Oraá was born in Havana on October 23, 1931 and studied Painting and Sculpture at the National Academy of Fine Arts San Alejandro.

Works by his hand are featured in the collections of the National Museum of Fine Arts, the University Museum El Chopo, Mexico City, the Godwin-Ternbach Museum of Queen College University in New York, and in the Museum of Finest Cuban Arts, Vienna.

He collaborated in important Cuban publications such as La Gaceta de Cuba, Casa de las Américas, Unión, Orígenes, Ciclón, El Mundo, Revolución and Lunes de Revolución, among others.

His poems were translated into English, French, German, Polish, Russian, Bulgarian and Swedish, and he also had to his credit the 2011 National Prize for Book Design and Master of Youth Award, awarded in 2019 by the Hermanos Saíz Association.