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Excerpt of Introduction to Monograph of the Cuban Artist Tomas Marais (1931 - 2004), by Susanne Nielsen, Sierke Publishing, 2016:
Monograph of the Cuban artist
Tomas Marais (1931 - 2004)
"Andre
Breton, the father of Surrealism, once said that painting has to be aggressive.
The Surrealists were privileged artists living in an epoch in which modern art
was evolving. They provided a philosophical impetus for a provocative art.
Tomas Marais considered himself part of this mainstream, having exhibited, in
Paris, not only with Latin Surrealists such as Wilfredo Lam and Matta, but also
with Europeans like Max Ernst and Picasso."[1]
"Marais'
paintings, sculptures, collages and writings recall this Surrealist ethos. It
is imperative the art work produce sensations that reflect the artist's life
and suffering ... Tomas Marais draws his ideas from the magic of everyday life.
His art is the result of his daydreams, where fantasy and reality merge."[2]
"The
principle components of my art are passion, vigor, and symbols - the transfiguration
of everyday objects and persons. I was born a dreamer, and I'll always be a
dreamer,"[3]
Tomas
Marais.
Tomas Marais, who was
born in Cuba in 1931 and trained in his native country, developed his aesthetic
in Paris in the 1960s turning to surrealism in his self-imposed exile. His art,
comprised of Cuban symbolism, primitivistic elements and an intensive color
palette found a language all its own. Marais created an iconography that makes
him an important representative of Cuban art of twentieth century. He also
represents a significant group of Cuban artists who developed their art in
exile, between 1960 and 1980, a body of work that has been negated within Cuba,
its creators a "lost generation" in the chronology of Cuban art
history. It is imperative to record both the individual artistic achievement
and to give this forgotten generation of artists their rightful place in the
history of their country's art.
This monograph presents
the first attempt to create a catalog
raisonne of Cuban artist Tomas Marais while making an important
contribution to art historical research on the diaspora of Cuban artists of the
“Lost Generation 1960 – 1980.”
In 2002, Miami art critic Armando Alvarez Bravo wrote:
"Surreal elements combine with a unique
style that Marais developed in the last four decades. Marais is not limited to
one culture or influence, and his international travel has led to an
interesting mixture of ideas that come together magically on the canvas in the
formation of a truly personal style."[4]
This work constitutes
an exploration of the artistic expressions Tomas Marais' and his work phases,
especially of his paintings. It presents the first catalog of approximately
1500 works by this artist and spans a creative period of over 40 years.
Ten years after Cuban
exile artist Tomas Marais’ death in 2004 in Tampa, Florida, his work was mostly
forgotten. A definitive work had not been written, his oeuvre had not been
catalogued. The art market was focused
on Cuban art of the early modernists of the beginning twentieth century and the
representatives of the Cuban arts with training received after 1960. The
mid-century artists who were trained before 1959 and went into exile at the
time of the Cuban revolution in 1959 or closely after, have received little
recognition and are now forgotten after their deaths in the early 2000s.
“There is little art
criticism or art historical research on this generation of artists and 1950s
Cuban art,”[5]
wrote Juan A. Martinez in his study of contemporary Cuban surrealist artist
Agustin Fermandez, one of this "Lost Generation," who died in exile
in New York in 2006.
Many of these artists
left Cuba in the 1950s and early 1960s on scholarships given to them by the
Ministry of Culture in hopes they would return to enrich the Cuban cultural
life with their newly gained skills in an otherwise restricted system.[6]
Instead, they often did not return, trading freedom of expression for life in a
state that had too clearly defined their role as emissaries of the new
ideology.[7]
If they spoke out politically against their country their art in Cuba was
banned or destroyed. Marais’ mural for the Havana Railway Terminal building
became one such casualty.[8]
Cuban cultural institutions and publications no longer included names of these
creative exiles or their oeuvres in
its history of art.[9]
Cuban exile artists of
this period have all but died. Multiple influences from the stations of their
lives in exile formed their aesthetic. Their art underwent a metamorphosis with
their existence abroad, but was rooted in their early Cuban existence and
training by Cuban masters at Havana’s academy of art, Escuela de Artes Plasticas de San
Alejandro.[10]
Tomas Marais’ art is an
excellent example of an oeuvre rooted in the culture of Cuba, part of the art
by a generation of artists whose work reflect mid-century art of Cuba. These
exile artists have remained free from a system that tightly controlled every
aspect of creative production from 1959 into the twenty-first century.
Marais’ name and his
art represents the countless careers that were rebuilt, defined by
displacement, determined by the politics of more than half a century of
censorship to which he and his piers could not compromise. His art is a
testament to the creativity of Cuba, born in a vibrant multi-ethnic culture and
enriched by the influences of his multiple exiles; it is as important a
contribution to the arts of the island nation as the arts that developed within
its particular confines in the mid to late twentieth and early twenty-first
century.
Few artists of Marais’
generation in exile were able to dedicate their life to the creation of art.
Tomas Marais received the support from cultural institutions, museum
exhibitions and grants, namely from the Cintas
Foundation[11]
and from his family who guards his legacy. He was thus able to dedicate the
last phase of his creative life entirely to his art. Such sponsorship is
invaluable and its result a singular achievement by the artist to create over
one hundred paintings and sculptures in the span of twenty years until his
death in 2004.
This doctoral thesis
seeks to create awareness of the art of Cuban exile artist Tomas Marais. It
follows the stages of the artist’s life and work from Cuba to the United States
of America. It is a first overview of Tomas Marais’ works in two and three
dimensions. The author seeks to make transparent Tomas Marais’ work in multiple
mediums and to ensure the catalog of his oeuvre
finds its rightful place in the history of Cuban art.
Marais' body of work is
varied and marked by his native Cuban sensibility and the three stages of his
emigration, Paris, Caracas, and Tampa. His techniques and stylistic methods
changed with each successive station over forty years.
Marais developed
recurring motifs, an iconography formed by connecting both European and native
Cuban influences and in his identification with those whose life in exile made
them "cosmonauts", a visual language in need of deciphering. He found
no consistent affiliation with other exiled artists. The connection he was able
to establish with the art movement in Paris in the 1960s and ‘70s, was severed
due to tragic life circumstances. During the last twenty years of his life,
which he spent in the United States, Marais retreated back into Surrealism.
Reconnecting his art to the 1950s and ‘60s movement of Cuban artists in Paris
set him significantly apart from that generation of young Cubans moving to
Florida after 1980, whose training and imagery did not look for inspiration to
European art. Its politically aggressive statements were a reflection of the
latest Cuban history of the late twentieth and early twenty-first century. It
was this contemporary art that became the main focus, overshadowing the art by those
just preceding it, made by Cubans of the mid-century generation. The growing
individual bodies of work by long-time exiles such as Marais no longer
addressed current and immediate political and social messages of the newest
group of Cuban artists who had joined them in exile. Marais, who had found
Surrealism in the 1960s in Paris, now lived and worked alone on Florida's west
coast, with a view of the art of one of his idols, Surrealist Salvador Dali (Salvador Dali Museum). Although he was
included as a Cuban artist in the group of Latino artists, his art remained in
a creative world all its own.
The researcher brings
to the project her knowledge of art history obtained in two successfully
completed (1983 and 1989, respectively) graduate degree programs, the first at
Bonn University (Magister Artium, (M.A.), Rheinische
Friedrich-Wilhelm’s-Universität Bonn, Germany) and a visual arts degree
program at East Carolina University’s
School of Art (Master of Fine Arts, M.F.A.), North Carolina, USA, and art
history studies (doctoral studies) at Heidelberg University (Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg),
Heidelberg, Germany. In addition, she
has published art reviews and art criticism for a number of regional and
national publications since the 1980s. As arts reviewer and interviewer for
arts print and radio media, she made the acquaintance and followed Cuban exile
artist Tomas Marais professionally and developed a ten-year friendship as
fellow artist in exile. They shared extensive knowledge of the arts of Europe,
its history and development. Both held an affinity to the city of Paris where
both had resided for a time. The
researcher continued her career teaching Art History and Humanities at colleges
and museums (docent training) while reporting on the regional arts in Florida.
She worked with exhibitions and the institutions in whose galleries Marais
exhibited. She knew many of his contemporaries, both artists and museum staff.
It is in gratitude to
the artist’s immediate family (primarily the artist’s sister Nancy Muniz Brito)
in whose hands the artist’s estate is currently held, that this project could
be realized. As a result of this cooperation a first catalog of the works of
Tomas Marais could be completed, the subject of this dissertation.
In the research of the
development of Marais' oeuvre various
sources in multiple countries had to be consulted. On the occasion of solo and
group exhibitions and retrospectives of this artist reviews and short catalogs
were published, recorded in a personal chronological bibliography of the
artist. Other documents were found in archives and libraries in Cuba, Paris,
Spain, Venezuela, and the U.S., and were, where accessible, included in this
study. The majority of Marais’ artistic work - at the time of the research -was
in the hands of the executors of his estate, his family, more than 1,500
paintings, drawings, woodcuts, collages, photographs, and sculptures, brought
to Florida or created there by the artist.
Most of his woodcuts were
in the inventory of a college foundation and one museum. Other works could be
attributed to private collectors in Europe and the U.S., but after their
deaths, the whereabouts of this art remained uncertain. The catalog of Marais’
work had to primarily rely upon the artist’s own archives and his collection of
slides, lists and other materials. Photographs were provided by a number of
generous individuals for academic purposes with certain limitations on usage.
Marais’ original art
and documents in Florida were made available for research in situ and over a
limited period of approximately three years. Additionally, access was granted
to a museum and foundation collection, private collections, and to archived
materials. All owners and guardians of Tomas Marais’ art, and documents who
could be contacted were appreciative, generous, and helpful in their assistance
of the author’s research.
This doctoral thesis
represents the first research and survey of the life and work of the Cuban
exile artist Tomas Marais. To this end, it serves as a first catalog of his
visual art. Marais also wrote prose, in Spanish or French, and conceptual
projects in collaboration with his partner Mucha.
While Marais’ writings
have contributed to the study of Marais’
oeuvre in this dissertation, Marais’ poetry and Surrealist prose warrant an
additional work dedicated to this aspect of his creative oeuvre. An in-depth analysis and a pairing of his writings with his
visual works that make up his formative work of the 1960s and ‘70s must be left
to future research.
This qualitative study
is divided chronologically. Marais created his art in four main periods in four
different locations. These determined his life, geographically and culturally,
as well as the technology and materials he used to build his style, themes and
his iconography. Marais' art can be divided into the following categories:
A. Cuba, 1931 - 1964:
Painting (early work), woodcuts (genre / political themes) Cuban crafts
(working for INIT, a workshop for the development of prototypes for the Cuban
tourism industry), art in public construction (wall paintings), Abstract
Painting (transitional style);
B. Paris, France, 1964
- 1976: Abstract Painting (transitional style, informed by themes of fantasy
and Surrealism), objects (Plexiglas, plastic, minimalist style and pop themes),
collage / photomontage (surrealist and social themes), and conceptual art
(autobiographical themes);
C. Caracas, Venezuela,
1977 - 1987: Furniture design (working for interior design company),
assemblages (Caracalatas / Alaracas, minimalist style), Photography;
D. Tampa, Florida, USA,
1987 -2004: painting (late work, surrealist themes), Sculpture (wood).
Tomas Marais chose the
following recurring artistic motifs and themes: Faces / figures, Cuban life and
landscapes, biblical themes, allegorical themes, circus themes and toys,
socially critical and political themes, butterflies, shoes, mythological and
fantasy themes, dancers / marionettes and monuments. Marais created a symbolism
that is represented in a number of series: the figure of the “Cosmonaut,”
thoughts and memories, machines, chairs and twins. Color plates illustrate
Marais' techniques and the most significant painting series in the addendum of
this work.
The research consisted
of source material from the artist's estate, information from interviews with
contemporaries, archival materials and personal experience with the artist
through artistic and personal exchange from 1993 - to 2004. Information was gathered
in situ in Tampa, Miami, Paris,
Rotterdam, and Havana (the latter a verification through an assistant).
Discussions with numerous contemporaries of Marais' (see list of interviews in
the addendum) led to the inclusion of anecdotal information and the verification
of details and chronology of Marais’ art.
5.1 Interviews with
Contemporaries
Marais’ Cuban artist
colleagues who lived with him in Paris in the 1960s could no longer be
interviewed for this study. These included Roberto Garcia-York, another artist
who accompanied Marais on his trip from Cuba (via Prague) to Paris in 1964 and
lived there until his death, the Cuban naïve painter and friend Eduardo
Michaelsen, who for a time remained in the home of the Marais family after
their departure, and who left Cuba in 1980 for political reasons, died in 2010
in exile in San Francisco. Marais' Cuban surrealist contemporaries with whom he
had exhibited in Brussels and Paris, Roberto Garcia York and Jorge Camacho died
in 2005 and 2011, respectively. Only Joaquin Ferrer and Roberto Álvarez Ríos
were still in Paris in 2015. They could not be contacted at that time. An
interview with Randall Lake, one of two American artists (Randall Lake and Sara
Holt), who, like Marais, in 1970-1972 resided in sponsored art studios of the
Cité des Arts in Paris, and had befriended him, took place in the summer of
2015.
Interviews with his
fellow artists in Tampa remained limited to a few; the majority, particularly
the Europeans among them, had left the city before 2000. Several of the museum
directors, Ken Rollins and Lynn Whitelaw, were interviewed on the subject of
Marais. Local art critics had died, were no longer active, or they no longer
remembered at Marais and his art. Their published reviews were used in this
study.
Marais’ writings of
prose, poetry and extensive (pre-internet) correspondence, spanning the entire
life in exile of this artist, were made partially available. Due to initial
language barriers, the artist's sister orally translated some of the Spanish
letters and documents and, when requested, explained details of personal,
cultural and historic context.
A number of documents
were found in European museums-archives including the Bibliothèque Kandinsky at
the Centre Pompedou and the Bibliothèque Nationale de France (BnF)
in Paris; Diligent archivists in universities in Wisconsin and Florida assisted
in finding documents and obtaining
sources. A number of organizations and individuals could not be reached. A
collection of secondary literature on Cuban art was obtained privately through
secondary sources and members of Marais' extended family. Information,
especially regarding Cuba and its recent history have only recently been made
publically available on the Internet. All information collected was utilized
with the sensitivity to its specific cultural and ideological context.
5.3 Additional Sources,
Locations, and Materials
The author followed in
the artist’s footsteps in order to gain an understanding of Marais' physical
locations in Tampa and Paris, including his university studies, his residences
and art studios, such as the École des
Beaux Arts, La Casa Cuba, the Cite des Arts, the Latin Quarter and the
Cimetiere du Montparnasse (gravesite
of his partner Mucha). Research to discover a specific location of Marais' art
in Cuba was conducted via the Internet (360 degree-view) and in collaboration
with an assistant, in situ, with
limited possibilities, in Havana.
Although some of his early works had been
documented photographically by the Cuban press, their location and owners
remain largely unknown. In further improved international relations of Cuba,
the prospect of discovery of Marais' early works may extend the current
research. Concerns of the family, however, that an interest in this early work
would lead to its complete loss were taken into consideration. They were the
reason to postpone further inquiry.
Quoted text passages
were primarily all translated into English for a better continuum of the work,
with the original Spanish or French text included in the footnote. Translations
were utilized to support and as a means of making statements and do not claim
to be literal representations of the foreign-language text. The author does not
claim knowledge of culturally determined Cuban terminology or technical jargon.
Additionally, orthographic errors are possible, both in the three-language
communication between artist and author, and especially in the transcript of
many handwritten documents. Marais expressed his surreal ethos in dreamlike
narratives, which were often written in a "stream of consciousness"
style. Some quotes from these writings were included in the text of this work.
The original text was cited, where appropriate, with a translation or
interpretation added to facilitate readers’ comprehension.
Marais titled his art
occasionally first in French or English, but mostly in Spanish. Translations
were made by the author (designated hereafter as "Translation,
S.N."), not by the artist. Translation programs, professional language
experts, the artist's sister, and a growing understanding of original texts
supported the author in this study. During his life, communication between
artist and author was conducted in English and French, as well as some of the
interviews that took place between the author and the artists’ contemporaries
in Paris and Tampa.
Two bibliographies have
been complied, the afore mentioned personal chronological listing of all
publications pertaining to Tomas Marais, and a secondary bibliography denoting
all publications referenced in the text.
Names of Institutions
may vary in the course of the text which is due to the complex history of name
changes in their history, i.e. the San
Alejandro School of Fine Arts (Escuela
de Artes Plasticas de San Alejandro) has changed its name more than ten
times in its over 180 year history, equally the National Museum of Fine Arts in Havana (Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes de La Habana).[12]
Abbreviations of institutions that were taken from the original Spanish have
been added to its full name and used thereafter in the English text in the
Spanish abbreviated form. Quotation marks denote titles of works of art,
exhibition titles and names of institutions (i.e. San Alejandro) have been italicized.
Marais' art was subject
to many politically and culturally imposed rules. These are addressed in each
chapter, but it must be noted, especially for non-American readers, that Marais
was especially impacted in presenting his works in his last location with its
regional conservative view of the arts. Here the presentation of art in the
cultural institutions dependent upon public and private funds was subject to
politically driven regulations in a post 1989 Mapplethorpe-era[13]
where museums risked losing their funding if they presented any art that
touched upon the possibility of artistic nudity interpreted as
"obscenity". In Paris Marais had been free to include nudity and
sexual allusions as recurrent themes in his visual art and poetry. In Tampa,
this made some of his work difficult to present to audiences, particularly in
the conservative culture of the regional arts environment of the American
South. These and other
factors may have contributed to the limited (past and future) presentation of
Marais’ complete works to audiences in public institutions, museums, and also
private gallery settings.
Francisco Tomas Muniz
was born in 1931 in Amarillas, Mantanzas, Cuba, as the youngest son of a
wealthy fine cabinetmaker and furniture dealer. He felt a calling to become a
fine artist and connected to the family’s heritage by taking his French
great-grandfather last name, he became known as Tomas Marais.[14]
His childhood was
marked by European culture prevalent in the Cuban upper classes. His interest
in art was sparked especially by his father’s artistic profession, although by
then his father had rejoined his parents' sugar cane operation, and encouraged a
more stable profession especially for his sons. After early training as a
designer, Marais had been able to complete a formal classical arts education at
the best art school in the country, the Escuela
de Bellas Artes (Academy) de San Alejandro in Havana, Cuba, with additional
courses taken at the University of
Virginia in the United States.[15]
When Cuban artist
Wilfredo Lam, who would be the most influential international Cuban artist to
Marais’ generation, returned to Cuba from an extended stay in Europe, the Cuban
artists of the early twentieth century, the so-called Vanguardia, had already established modernism in Cuba. Cubism and
Surrealism had found representatives among these early Cuban modernists, such
as Amelia Pelaez and Carlos Enriquez.[16]
Their influence was passed on as they became art professors or were emulated by
the young art students of the mid-20th century.
Marais' first exhibition of note took place in
Havana in 1956 with fellow art students, the Los Cinco (The Five). His early work was dominated by traditional
themes of portraiture and Cuban landscapes and, as a devout Catholic, by
religious motifs. With the Revolution came a thematic reorientation of the San
Alejandro students who were guided especially by the political ideas of the new
director of the art academy, the painter and printmaker Carmelo Gonzalez.
8.2 Revolutionary Period 1959
-1961
Marais, who had worked
with wood carving as a young man, was led by the examples of Gonzalez's
Expressionism and programmatic woodcuts to create prints that celebrated the
Revolution and its ideas in printmaking workshops and artist organizations.
Marais presented his woodcuts in 1959 at the Annual Salon of Fine Arts Palace and the First Salon of the Cuban Union of Artists and Writers.
In 1960 Marais won a
first prize for the best depiction of “La Coubre," a politically motivated
bombing incident, in the competition "Themes of the Revolution" at
the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in
Havana. Tomas remained in Cuba until 1964. He was employed as head of two
workshops at the National Institute of Tourist Production (INIT) in Havana,
where he also taught. Additionally he taught in nearby Las Villas. The 1959
Revolution was initially seen as a positive change by Cuba’s intellectuals and
artists, but soon saw stringent limitations placed upon their intellectual
freedoms.[17]
Artists like Marais, after completing his classical arts training, longed to
follow his Cuban role models Wilfredo Lam and Angel Acosta Leon, looked for a
way to develop his art more freely outside of Cuba.
8.3 Transition Period 1962 -
1964
Many Cuban artists of
the modern era had collected experience in Europe and brought these ideas back
to Cuba, a leader among them the Afro-Cuban-Chinese Wilfredo Lam whose
destination Paris and his art remained the best known Cuban contemporary artist
abroad and role model to many young artists of Marais’ generation.
Marais, who had shown
his loyalty to the Revolution in the content of his work and proven himself in
exhibitions, made a case for himself to study in Europe. In Paris, the young
Cuban government hoped its artists with permission for long studies abroad,
would perfect their skills and return to utilize their talents in the creation
of major works of art that honored the new Cuban state.
As Marais prepared to
leave Cuba, in his painting he turned to a new technique and more abstract
style, abstraction with a varied surface, and themes of fantasy and the
Surreal. Marais’ “Winged Devil with Sword”[18] is
an excellent example of this change.
Marais received
permission from the Ministry of Culture to leave Cuba, where he had been
expected to serve in the military and cut sugar cane under Castro's regime.[19]
He left for France in May of 1964.[20]
In Paris, Marais
enrolled as a student at the Ecole des
Beaux Arts,[21]
and painted fantasy creatures and butterflies, a symbol of his own
metamorphosis. "There is no doubt," wrote the Cuban critic Luis
Moreno, "that Paris formed Marais' art intellectually. He left the
tropical landscape of Cuba behind but his artistic subjects continued to show
these memories. Marais brought the butterfly motif with him to Paris."[22]
Marais found a room at La Casa Cuba on the university’s international campus,
here he immediately connected to a group of young Cuban artists, all linked to
Surrealism and was among the discoveries made by Jose Pierre, a critic from the
circle of Andre Breton, the founder of Surrealism.[23]
In his ideas he
followed the surrealist masters Max Ernst and Dali, whose works he saw in Paris
(Salon de Mai). Marais' new series of
fantastic beings was perfectly aligned with the established style. During this
period he lost his painter friend, Angel Acosta Leon, who, after his stay in
the Netherlands, had just reunited with the other Cubans in Paris. Acosta Leon
drowned on a ship returning him to Cuba, one of several losses that had a deep
impact on Marais’ art.
The year of his arrival
in Paris, Marais and the other young Cuban surrealists were invited by Pierre
and Lam to participate in an exhibition entitled Seven Cuban Surrealists at Gallery Maya in Brussels. Marais presented two Butterfly themed works with
Jorge Camacho, Angel Acosta Leon, Joaquin Ferrer, Roberto Garcia York, Alvares
Rios and Wilfredo Lam, the "father" of this group. Jose Pierre, who
had inspired the exhibition, wrote the exhibition catalog text as a surrealist
play. In it Marais received the name “sewing machine” from the famous
Lautremont quote,[24]
perhaps due to Pierre’s unexpected encounter with this artist in Paris, a name
given to him that would seal his lifelong connection with Surrealism.
Lam’s Chilean friend,
the artist Matta, organized a second exhibition of the Cuban surrealists, this
time in Paris, Un Escultor y Siete
Pintores Cubanos (A sculptor and Seven Cuban Painters). Matta and Lam
remained the role models of this group of artists, but each of these figurative
artists in Paris developed a very individual style. Critic Luis Moreno noted
these Cubans remained a special group, a "surrealistic enclave"
within Cuban art.[25]
In Paris Marais
discovered new techniques and materials. He created experimental collages from
the abundance of intensely colored glossy pictures in many magazines. He
expanded his art and created three-dimensional assemblages of found objects. In
this city he found that everything not needed was deposited at the curb,
material for his art.[26]
Marais’ pictorial elements showed influences from his encounters with art in
museums, but above all with contemporary artists in Europe, in Paris, and from
traveling to Spain, Italy and Germany.
The New York Cintas Foundation awarded the Cuban
Surrealist two consecutive $ 10,000.00 scholarships in support of Cuban exile
artists, 1966/67 and 1967/68, for his fantasy themed paintings. These funds
allowed him to devote himself entirely to the development of a new artistic
career abroad.
In 1967 Marais’ new
three-dimensional art, his symbolic figure, the “Cosmonaut,” a first larger
surrealist sculpture made from found objects, was chosen by Jacqueline Selz,
General Secretary of the Paris Salon de
Mai, to be included in this prestigious annual exhibition of contemporary art
held at the Paris Museum of Modern Art. Marais’ piece was shown in the gallery
of the Surrealists surrounded by masters of this style.
For the Salon de Mai Marais had created his
sculpture, a torso completely covered with green moss. The head of this
"Cosmonaut" consisted of a crystal bowl in which swam bright orange
ornamental fish. Metallic green netting simulated seemingly extraterrestrial
headgear and a green light shone from behind onto this figure, its
"face" consisting of water reflections. The surreal torso of the extraterrestrial
traveler stood, flanked by two wheels, on a white pedestal. Marais was proud to
see his work exhibited in the midst of the art of his great idols, the first
generation of modernity represented by Picasso, Miro, Rene Magritte, and Hans
Arp. He saw himself in the succession of Surrealists Dali, Max Ernst, Oppenheim
and Lam.
Since 1944 the Salon de Mai had annually documented
international contemporary art trends and shared its exhibition with other
countries, among them was Sweden, Switzerland, and Japan. In 1967 Cuban artist
Wilfredo Lam won over the Cuban leader to allow Cuba to host the salon as its
partner country of that year. Fidel Castro welcomed the art exhibition as it
gave him the opportunity to draw international attention to the achievements of
his new socialist state. For this event, Lam brought the art of three
generations of important artists of the modern age - of particular importance
to him were the Surrealists, as guests of the Cuban government into the country
of the Revolution.
Like all Cuban
participants, Marais, who had left his country legally, was received back
positively in July of 1967. Like the group’s organizer, Lam, who returned again
and again, the Cuban government, had hopes of a permanent return of these
artists who lived in exile. For the artists who visited nine weeks, Marais was
no exception, the decision to return to Paris was clear. Politically, art
continued to be accepted only if it was “within the Revolution…” with no
possible dissent: “without the Revolution, nothing.”[27]
Marais’ participation
as one of the 100 artists at this important Franco-Cuban exhibition was the last visit to his homeland for the then
36 year-old. Like all artists of the Salon
de Mayo, Marais traveled across the country. They were given studios where
they created art that was donated to the Cuban people.
Fidel Castro,
additionally, gave permission for the creation of a mural, an idea inspired by
Lam; over 80 artists would paint "Cuba Colectiva" in one night. Marais
was included and painted the surrealistic portrait of his key figure, the
"Cosmonaut", a portrait in profile gazing into the distance.
Politically, he remained neutral, which assured the government’s goodwill at
his departure. This time he would seek French citizenship.
8.8 Middle and Late Paris
Period 1968 - 1976
On his return to Paris,
Marais found Mucha, whose art manifested itself in words, and inspired Marais
to write prose and poetry. Marais abandoned his painting and though he
continued to create collages, he concentrated on his three-dimensional art. In
the development of his art, Marais was now firmly rooted as Europe's young art
movement; his objects followed the latest trends in art and their
representatives.
Marais’ assemblages
were compositions of “found objects” inspired by Duchamp that combined
Surrealism with the Pop of the 1960s.[28] He
constructed minimalist Plexiglas boxes, into which he incorporated a few
objects as symbols for the homeland he had left behind. Plastic bristles and
Plexiglas cylinders became his palm trees and Plexiglas boxes filled with
plastic chains symbolized the abandonment forced by the new Cuban state
(“Enchainement Spatial”).
Marais taught painting,
drawing, collage, and acrylic sculpture at the American Center in Paris.[29] For
three years he lived in the Cité des Arts,[30]
in one of the subsidized artist's studios, where he devoted himself to his
three-dimensional art.[31]
His years in Paris were
marked by trips and exhibitions throughout Europe, in Spain, Italy, Belgium, Germany,
and England. With Mucha, whose Venezuelan family had Russian-Jewish heritage,
Marais traveled to Israel with the intention of a one-year Kibbutz stay[32].
In his last years in Paris, the grant on Marais' studio had run out. Thus, he
was forced to work long hours in the hotel business to remain in the art
metropolis. With Mucha he developed projects and an exhibition of Conceptual
art. Its theme, the importance of family and the central role of women in
Marais' life explained the consequences that arose for Marais from the early
death of his 29-year partner: an immediate end to his life in Paris.
8.9 Venezuela Period 1977 -
1987
After Mucha’s death
Marais was offered work by her family in Caracas, Venezuela, as a designer in
the family interior design and furniture business Artande. Although he accepted, he was not able to establish family
ties in Venezuela. After the business closed, Marais freelanced as a designer
and photographer for a magazine, Casa Hoy.[33]
When, in 1983, he presented himself to the Caracas arts community,[34]
he showed his Parisian surrealist collages in a one-person exhibition at one of
the city’s galleries.[35]
He hoped to also soon show his new assemblages, small metal pieces of wire, or
flattened cans, found materials from the construction of the city’s subway
system, which he had mounted on sandpaper sheets. He named them “Caracalatas”
and “Alaracas.”[36]
8.10 Early Tampa Period 1987
- 2002
After ten artistically
unproductive years[37]
in Venezuela, Marais’ main wish became to become reunited with his family who
lived in exile in Florida. In the late 1980s, when the artist was in his
mid-50s, he moved to Tampa and found renewed strength to create his art.
In his late phase, with
access to paint, and canvas, and space provided by his family, Marais changed
his medium again and produced vibrant surrealistic paintings with themes of
dreams and memories. He created these late paintings under the intense Florida
sun with its proximity to the Caribbean, similar to both Cuba and Venezuela,
both personally and artistically, a homecoming for Marais.
Marais combined
European influences with recurring themes, sometimes in a primitivistic-expressionist
style, or surrealistic, on stage, in the circus or in a stylized tropical dream
world, reminiscent of Florida’s landscape. Artists like Otto Mueller, Henri
Rousseau, Paul Gaugin, or Dali and Max Ernst are echoed in his work.
In his final years in
Florida, Marais found himself reunited with one of the Surrealist masters, the
Salvador Dali museum was dedicated to the Surrealist master in nearby St.
Petersburg. In Tampa there was a large Spanish-speaking community, originally
concentrated in Ybor City, where Cuban cigars were once made. On Florida's east
coast, where other family members lived, Marais found exhibition opportunities.
In Miami most of the
Cuban artists were young, born after 1960, and the generation of a new
post-1980s era. At the time he moved to Florida, in the late 1980's, the
interest of cultural institutions in Cuban art seemed to grow. Marais choice of
location - although determined by proximity to family, built on the hope that
this state, closest to Cuba with its growing number exile families since 1959
would have developed its own arts culture that showed and sold Cuban art.
Building new existences had not allowed for the art market to develop widely;
only current movements in Cuban exile art and the Vanguardia found representation.
8.11 Final Tampa Period 2002
- 2004
Galleries and museums
in the U.S. outside of metropolises found little interest in the style of
surrealism. Modern art movements rooted in U.S. public consciousness were
mainly Abstractionism and Pop art, which Marais could not foresee when he
expected the Surrealism he turned back in his final work to be widely
recognized. His iconography and his style had been long established and well
known in Europe. A further development after his move from Paris had not taken
place. For Marais a return to the Surrealism, consciously or unconsciously, was
a way to complete his oeuvre, to turn
the ideas of more than one thousand sketches and drawings on paper into oil
paintings, according to the classical belief that painting supersedes works on
paper, thus giving his art lasting value. Although the art hailed from a
different time and place, Marais’ self-created “Cuban island”, he found
fulfillment and the need to leave it as his legacy.
During his remaining
twenty years before his final illness, with the support of his family Marais
was able to achieve his personal goal, to create more than one hundred
surrealist paintings. Until shortly before his death in 2004, at the age of 72,
Marais worked tirelessly in Florida, creating a vast amount of paintings,
drawings and sculptures.
In 2002 and 2003, two
Florida museums showed major retrospectives of Marais’ art.[38] The
title Tomas Marais: Havana, Paris and
Tampa honored the artist’s most creative periods in his life’s work. In preparation of these exhibitions, Marais
took a last trip to Europe with his cousin and succeeded in bringing to the
United States a number of his early works, left behind and deposited with a
friend in Paris. These original works from the 1960s completed the
retrospective and presented his most significant art created during his
formative, his Paris years.
Marais’ art was a
colorful synthesis of dreams and memories. He remained a (day) dreaming
Surrealist who took everyday objects and built a fantastic world of
butterflies, dancers and marionettes, toys and machines, half mechanical, half
human and in constant metamorphosis, reflecting the life he lived himself.
Marais was the
Cosmonaut in ever new alien environments. Like his butterflies, he was forced
into many states of metamorphosis, yet created a singular work as did the
entire “Lost Generation” of Cuban exile artists that need to be found.
Excerpt, Introduction, Susanne
Nielsen PhD’s Doctoral Dissertation, University Paderborn:
Sierke Publishing ,
Goettingen, Germany, 2016, Vol. I,II, 750 pages.
[1] Tomas Marais. Walking around the World. (1994). Exhibition catalog.
Hispanic Awareness Month Orlando: University of Central Florida (UCF) Library.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.
[4] “Los elementos surrealistas se
combinan con estilo unico que Marais ha desarrollado en las cuatro ultimas
decadas. Marais no se limita a una cultura o influencia, y sus viajes
internacionales le han llevado a una interesante mezcla de ideas que se unen
magicamente en el lienzo en la formacion de un estilo verdaderamente personal.”
Bravo, A.A. (1999, October
31). Dos Exposiciones de Tomas Marais. Artes y Letras, El Nuevo Herald, Miami,
Florida.
[5] Martinez, J.A. (1992) A
Preliminary Study of Agustín Fernandez' Formative Phase. In Agustín Fernandez: A Retrospective.
Damian J. Fernandez and Madeline Cámara (Eds.). Miami, Florida: The Art Museum
at Florida International University.
[6]Megret, F. (1966, March 10). Cuba
a l’Heure Surrealiste: Dada Si! Figaro
Litteraire, Les Arts. Paris, France.
[7] Castro, F. (1961). Pamphlet
Palabras a los Intellectuales [Pamphlet Words to Intellectuals]. Havana, Cuba:
National Cultural Council. Retrieved May 29, 2014 from University of Texas,
Austin, Texas,
http://lanic.utexas.edu/project/castro/db/1961/19610630.html
[8] “His artwork involves political
or spiritual images, and his large murals in Havana were once whitewashed by
the dictator Fidel Castro.” Latino Art Now On Display At GCC Gallery. (1992,
May 14). The Republican. Oakland,
Maryland.
[9] "Political power responded
by banning their names and works." Rodriguez, F.A. (2008). Exil als Heliotopie: kubanische Kunst am
Ende des 20 Jahrhunderts (Doctoral dissertation). Frankfurt, Germany: Peter
Lang.
[10] San Alejandro School of Fine Art has changed its name over ten
times in 180 years existence, thus references will follow the given context
throughout this text. Veigas-Zamora, J., Gutierrez, C.V., Nodal, A.J., Garzon,
V., Montes, D. de Orca, Figueroa, J. A.
(2002). Memoria: Cuban Art of the
20th Century. Los Angeles, California: California International Arts
Foundation.
[11] Marais received two consecutive
10,000 dollar grants, 1966/67 and 1967/68 from the Cintas Foundation, New York,
USA.
[12] Veigas-Zamora, J., Gutierrez,
C.V., Nodal, A.J., Garzon, V., Montes, D. de Orca, Figueroa, J. A. (2002). Memoria: Cuban Art of the 20th Century.
Los Angeles, California: California International Arts Foundation.
[13] NEA (National Endowment of the
Arts) funding restrictions and oversight changes as consequence of a
Mapplethorpe exhibition in 1989 at Corcoran Gallery, Washington, D.C. "In
1989, many Americans believed that artists such as Mapplethorpe and Serrano
pushed the limits of art too far and entered into the realm of indecency. In
response, Congress passed arts funding laws which restricted the National
Endowment for the Arts' (NEA) grant making procedures....The recent content
restrictions express doctrinal controls. The 1989 Helms amendment prevented the
NEA from funding art that was deemed obscene under the standard expressed in
Miller v. California; 3 the subsequent 1990 amendment provided that the NEA
must be guided by general standards of decency." Nea, C.R. (1993). Arts Funding: An Analysis
from the Artist’s Perspective. William
& Mary Bill of Rights Journal, (Volume 2, Issue 1). Williamsburg,
Virginia: College of William and Mary.
[14] “Don Francisco Tomas Muniz y De
Sotolongo, Marais y Malea conocido siempre por 'Tomas Marais' es pintor y
professor de artesania." Family chronology, compiled by unnamed family
member. Estate Tomas Marais, coll. Nancy Brito.
[15] According to his transcripts,
courses in abstract painting and the technique of encaustic painting. University
of Virginia transcripts, 1957. Estate Tomas Marais, coll. Nancy Brito.
[16] Martinez, J.A. (1994). Cuban Art and National Identity, the
Vanguardia Painters 1927-1950. Gainesville, Florida: University Press of
Florida.
[17] Castro, F. (1961). Pamphlet Palabras a los Intellectuales
[Pamphlet Words to Intellectuals]. Havana, Cuba: National Cultural Council.
Retrieved May 29, 2014 from University of Texas, Austin, Texas, http://lanic.utexas.edu/project/castro/db/1961/19610630.html
[18] (1964). Cintas Foundation Collection, New York.
[19]
“I came out of Cuba because they made me go in the militia and cut sugar
cane, I wanted to be an artist.”Milani, J. (2002). Metamorphosis of the Butterfly-Man.
The Tampa Tribune, Tampa, Florida.
[20] Torriente, L., de la. (1966,
January 9) Pintores Cubanos en Paris. El
Mundo Del Domingo.Havana, Cuba, p.11.
[21]
“I did it mostly to have a piece of paper (to maintain official
university student status).” Van Rossum, E. (Director), Knight, M. (Producer).
(1989, November 25). Interview Tomas
Marais [Get a Kik out Of Art, Tape # 30-707]. Tampa, Florida: Public Access
TV.
[22] Moreno, L. (1998) Tomas Marais y el oasis surrealista de la
plastica cubana. Exhibition catalog. Miami, Florida: Domingo Padron Art
Gallery.
[23] Nielsen, S. (Executive
Producer). (1997, July 5) Interview I
with Tomas Marais [Global Voices radio show] Clearwater, Florida: WLVU 1470
AM.
[24] “..As beautiful as the chance
encounter of an umbrella and a sewing machine on a dissection table.” Laughlin,
J. (1965). Comte de Lautréamont: Les
Chants de Maldoror. New York, New York: New Directions Publishing.
[25] Moreno, L. (1998) Tomas Marais y el oasis surrealista de la
plastica cubana. Exhibition catalog. Miami, Florida: Domingo Padron Art
Gallery.
[26] Interview Randall Lake, 2015.
[27] Castro, F. (1961). Pamphlet Palabras a los Intellectuales
[Pamphlet Words to Intellectuals]. Havana, Cuba: National Cultural Council.
Retrieved May 29, 2014 from University of Texas, Austin, Texas, http://lanic.utexas.edu/project/castro/db/1961/19610630.html
[28] !Hacia Paris/Towards Paris! (2009, May 19-June 30). Exhibition
catalog. Miami, Florida: Alianza Francesa/Cremata Gallery.
[29] Program, the American Center in Paris. Estate Tomas Marais,
coll. Nancy Brito.
[30] Cité Internationale des Arts.
Retrieved June 26, 2015 from http://citedesarts.pagesperso-orange.fr/cite-internationale-des-arts-english-presentation.html
[31] Interview Randall Lake, 2015.
[32] This wish remained unfulfilled
due to Marais’ religious affiliation as a Catholic. Interview Miguel Muniz,
2013.
[33] Casa Hoy (1970s). Caracas, Venezuela.
[34] Exposicion
homenaje a: Mucha y Ramona T. Sotolongo: Collages, Tomas Marais (1983, May
9). Exhibition catalog. Caracas, Venezuela: Galeria Serra.
[35] Galeria Serra: treinta y dos collage. (1983, May 22). Hoy, Caracas
a diario. Caracas, Venezuela.
[36] Nielsen, S. (Executive Producer).
(1997, July 5) Interview I with Tomas
Marais [Global Voices radio show] Clearwater, Florida: WLVU 1470 AM.
[37] Marais did not include his work
in furniture and craft design when he named his periods of Fine art
productivity. Conversations with the artist by the author, 1993 – 2003.
[38] The Gulf Coast Museum of Art, Largo, Florida, 2002, and the Museum of Arts and Sciences, Daytona,
Florida, 2003.
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