National Prize for Plastic Arts 2024 for Manuel Hernández

March 8, 2025

Artist Manuel Hernández was unanimously awarded the National Prize for Plastic Arts 2024, according to the verdict announced this Friday at the headquarters of the National Council of Plastic Arts.

Presided over by Miguel Barnet, National Prize for Literature and Cultural Heritage, and made up of visual artist Lesbia Vent Dumois, vice president of the Uneac and National Prize for Plastic Arts 2019; also artist Zaida del Río, National Prize for Plastic Arts 2023; specialist Margarita Ruiz and visual artist and director of the San Alejandro National Academy of Fine Arts, Julio César Pérez Moracén, the jury based its decision on an integral and paradigmatic body of work, which has artistically interpreted the imagination of Cuban peasantry in his sculptures, ceramics and caricatures.

«Throughout his life he has obtained relevant prizes in Cuba and abroad. His sense of Cuban humor is a model of what is most significant and profound in a vision of the world of the arts. Add to this his extensive work as a journalistic contributor to the most important publications in our country».

Manuel Hernández Valdés (January 2, 1943, Limonar, Matanzas) is a Cuban plastic artist dedicated mainly to graphic humor, peasant-themed painting and ceramics. Among the prizes he has won in his lifetime are the National Humor Prize (2006) and the National Journalism Prize José Martí (2001). His brush has made history in different media such as the newspapers Granma and Juventud Rebelde, Bohemia magazine; as well as the humorous supplements Dedeté and Palante.