Raul Martinez (Cuban, 1927-1995)

Raul Martinez was part of the abstract expressionist group Los Once during the Batista regime of the 1950s. The painters soon abandoned abstraction in favor of using art as a weapon for political and social change. In 1959, Martinez began working with a camera and became a photographer for Castro's newspaper, La Revolucion. During the 1960s, Martinez used historical propaganda photographs of Castro and Ché Guevara in a Pop Art style and encouraged young photographers as Cuba began to nurture the arts within the context of politics. He believed that by living in agreement with socialist tenets his art was a "political act."
- Mary Feidt

Selected Bibliography
Cockcroft, Eva. "Art and Politics: Cuba After the Revolution: An Interview with Raul Martinez and Marucha." Art In America ( v.71 n.11, 1983).

Cockcroft, Eva. "Kitsch In Cuba." Artforum International (Summer 1985) 72-3.

Lippard, Lucy. Made in the U.S.A: Art From Cuba. Old Westbury: Amelie Wallace Gallery, State University of New York; Traveling exhibition." Art in America (April 1996) 27.

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