Marta Permuy

Marta Cazañas Permuy (September 22, 1938 – October 4, 2017) was a Cuban-American fine art patron, art collector, curator, art dealer, and promoter based in Coral Gables, Florida. She was an influential figure in the establishment of the Latin American art market of South Florida. She managed and co-founded Permuy Gallery, one of the first venues dedicated to Cuban art in the United States. She also hosted a long-running art salon where South Florida art, literary, business, and political figures would gather to discuss art and culture.

Early life Background and upbringing The Madres Escolapias School of Cárdenas, where Marta Permuy was a student, as photographed in 1957. Marta Teresita Cazañas y Díaz was born on September 22, 1938, in Havana, the second child of Cuban judge Pedro Pablo Cazañas and his wife, Raquel María Díaz y Teresa. Her parents were of prominent Matanzas-area families. Marta and her siblings, Raquel and Eduardo, would be raised on the Cazañas family's Buena Vista estate in Cárdenas bordering Varadero.

She and her older sister Raquel attended the Las Madres Escolapias de Cárdenas Catholic school. Upon graduating they enrolled in the University of Havana studying law and chemistry, respectively. In her early years as a young adult in Cuba, Marta also first encountered Cuban art through paintings and folk art. These encounters developed the early interests of what would eventually become her primary career during her life in exile.

Cuban Revolution

With the outbreak of the Cuban Revolution and the growing alignment of the Castro regime with Soviet-backed Communist doctrines, Marta became involved with the pro-democracy Counterrevolution. She became highly active within the MRR (the Movement to Recuperate the Revolution, or Movement for Revolutionary Recovery), a leading faction of the broader Castro resistance that was made up of a coalition of University of Havana students, high-level defectors of the Castro government, as well as members of the influential Christian professional organization the Agrupación Católica Universitaria (ACU). As such, Marta's older sister Raquel and her husband, prominent psychiatrist and pro-democracy revolutionary René de la Huerta, also became involved. De la Huerta, a top member of the ACU, had previously been involved in efforts to oust Fulgencio Batista with Jorge Agostini and other anti-Batista figures. They would play an increasing influential role in the organization during the lead-up to the Bay of Pigs invasion and planning. In 1960 De La Huerta became Secretary of Intelligence of the MRR and Marta would often stay in his El Vedado residence with her sister during her MRR missions while the home served as an important covert MRR leadership base. Marta would be assigned to aid him in his missions as his right-hand through his various roles, which included his elevation to Civil Coordinator and finally National Coordinator of the MRR. Marta's activities included organizing meetings, hiding contacts, and coordinating between MRR cells with aliases to avoid detection by Castro and Soviet counter-intelligence agents and infiltrators. They later relocated to Washington D.C. in 1966 where Jesús Permuy received his Master in Regional and City Planning (MRCP) from the Catholic University of America and served as chief planner for Anne Arundel County. The Permuy family then returned permanently to South Florida in 1969 when Jesús Permuy was appointed Planning Supervisor for the Dade County Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).

The Permuy Gallery

By the early 1970s the Permuys had become active in the early Cuban art community of South Florida. Their initial involvement came through Jesús Permuy's previous relationships with artists in Cuba such as José Mijares and Amelia Peláez, as well and through his professional work as several Cuban artists also worked in or studied architecture, including Baruj Salinas, Miguel Jorge, and Rafael Consuegra. Another important cultural circuit was his involvement in the ACU, which had now relocated to Miami and included several artists, architects, and business leaders. Throughout the 1960s the Cuban arts community in exile struggled with a multitude of issues including a lack of institutional venues to showcase Cuban art, as well as a lack of disposable income among collectors to buy artworks at prices that would support a sustained Cuban and Latin American art market.

In 1969 the Permuys were introduced to Juan González by Baruj Salinas. As a result of his need to move, the Permuys then made arrangements with González to assume the lease to his art studio and subsequently convert it into a fine art gallery dedicated to Cuban art, becoming one of the first in the United States. The gallery neighbored the apartment of Cuban artist Miguel Jorge, who was close to fellow Cuban artists Lourdes Gomez Franca and Dionisio Perkins, and introduced them to the Permuys. This was a significant way for many artists to meet future collectors and become known by other segments of the community that were largely uninvolved with the arts. It was also an important cultural meeting point within the Cuban exile community in Miami and the surrounding cities. Another important group of artists that frequently exhibited in the gallery and participated in its Fridays was the Grupo GALA (GALA Group), the first formal professional organization of exhibiting Latin artists in South Florida.

The Permuy House

In 1976 the Permuys purchased a historic Mediterranean Revival-styled residence in Coral Gables. Built adjacent to the Biltmore Hotel and Golf Course during the early Merrick era of the city's founding, the property was noted for being designed by Alfred F. Schimek and featuring an extension by Alfred Browning Parker. In 1981 Jesús and Marta would divorce.

The Permuy House, the main venue of Marta Permuy's later art events and a landmark of Coral Gables, Florida, as seen in 2020.

Through the 1980s Marta fully relaunched her art career, now using the Permuy House as her base of activities. She would continue hosting her long-running salon gatherings, hold events and private art exhibitions, and maintain a schedule of regular weekly social gatherings with artists, such as Perkins and Mijares, and collectors.

Through her later years, Permuy continued to support marginalized, established, as well as emerging artists from the Permuy House as well as events throughout South Florida. Artists Permuy supported in her later years included Neith Nevelson, Ramon Unzueta, Carlos Navarro, Josevelio Rodriguez, and Carlos Acostaneyra. The home was designated a Coral Gables landmark in 2021 for its cultural-historical significance. The following year Cuban art scholar and historian Lynette Bosch stated “That early art world could not have happened without them (Marta and Jesús Permuy).” as well as for helping to initiate Coral Gables' rise as a major hub of Latin American art galleries in the United States by the 1980s.

Permuy Gallery and Marta Permuy's broader work in the arts has been covered by several publications including Latin American art journal Resumen, the Arts Coast Journal and Coral Gables News, as well as in books such as Outside Cuba: Contemporary Cuban Visual Artists, (1989) Breaking Barriers, (1997) and Cuban-American Art in Miami: Exile, Identity, and the Neo-Baroque (2004) where she was included among the founders of Miami's Cuban art community. on cultural and historic grounds due to its close association with Marta Permuy's career as the main base of her art activities for over forty years. In its Landmark Designation Report for the property, the Coral Gables Historic Resources & Cultural Arts Department stated "Marta played a pivotal role in supporting [...] launching and sustaining Cuban artists. The home is a touchstone to aid us in remembering and honoring her efforts.” The City of Coral Gables also issued an official press release outlining the significance of the Permuy House through the cultural contributions of Marta and Jesús Permuy. Following its landmark designation, the home was used to showcase the city’s historic preservation program and published on Gables Insider as well as the City of Coral Gables eNews "Preserving Our History" segment.

In 2022, several events marked the 50th anniversary of the launch of Permuy Gallery as well as the fifth anniversary of her death. On August 24, Coral Gables Mayor Vince Lago and the City Commission presented a City Proclamation declaring her birthday of September 22 as "Marta T. Permuy Day" in Coral Gables in honor of her cultural impact.

In a May 2022 interview, Ricardo Pau-Llosa spoke of Permuy Gallery's legacy and impact, crediting it as “the first pioneer gallery of what would later become a Coral Gables signature: the hub of Latin American art,” as well as “the beginning of, and proposed the idea of […] Miami as ‘the bi-hemispheric city’ — where North American, European, Latin American, and African art converged on equal footing.”

In 2023, The Vasari Project created an archive for Marta Permuy due to her art career's cultural significance to South Florida and the Cuban community. The Vasari Project is overseen by the Miami-Dade Public Library System to document artistically significant records pertaining to the Miami-Dade County region from the Post-World War II era through to the present for research, scholarship, and preservation purposes.

In 2024, the Marta Permuy Legacy Collection was established in the Alvin Sherman Library, one of the largest in the state of Florida and part of Nova Southeastern University, with a donation by her grandson, Antonio Permuy. He died in combat on January 7, 1967, at the age of 22. As a Cuban immigrant and son of Pedro Pablo Cazañas, his death was covered in English and Spanish media including the Diario Las Americas. He posthumously received the Purple Heart for his actions and is included in the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington D.C. While raising her children, Marta would organize annual Memorial Day family trips to his memorial in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. She was also aunt to MasTec founder Jorge Mas Canosa by marriage of her daughter. Her children have remained active in the arts as art collectors and patrons and her grandchildren include artists, curators, and critics.