Carlos José Alfonzo Espina

Carlos Alfonzo (1950–1991) was a Cuban-American painter known for his neo-impressionistic style. His work has been collected by Whitney Museum of American Art and Smithsonian Institution.

Early life and education He was born in Havana, Cuba, in 1950. He attended the Academia San Alejandro in Cuba, where he received a degree in art in 1973. He later attended the University of Havana, where he received an art history degree in 1977.

Career

Exile from Cuba In hopes of finally attaining true freedom as an individual and an artist, and after days spent crowded into the Peruvian Embassy, Alfonzo left Cuba via the Mariel boatlift in 1980, on a journey that was marred by violence.

His work was also influenced by Cuba artist Wifredo Lam.

Death Alfonzo's life was claimed by AIDS in Miami, Florida in 1991. "Morbid though the notion may sound, death became the work of Carlos Alfonzo." "Witness, a piece created by the artist in 1990, tackles the artist's own mortality as part of a series of 'Black Paintings' made shortly before his death."

Within the decade following his exile from Cuba, the young artist and political refugee was awarded a Cintas Fellowship in the visual arts in 1983 and a visual artist fellowship in Painting from the National Endowment for the Arts in Washington D.C. in 1984.

His work has been exhibited in solo and group shows on a national and international scale including the 1991 Whitney Biennial, the exhibition entitled Hispanic Art in the United States, which traveled to seven prominent American institutions, and the 41st Biennial Exhibition of Contemporary American Painting at Corcoran Gallery. "His work was represented in the Outside Cuba exhibition and the Cuba-USA: The First Generation traveling exhibition." The exhibition included two studies for large murals in Miami. According to César Trasobares, the curator of Carlos Alfonzo: Clay Works and Painted Ceramics at PAMM: “For Alfonzo, works in clay and ceramic were an integral part of his evolving pictorial expression.”