Carlos Enríquez Gómez

Carlos Enríquez (August 3, 1900 - May 2, 1957), was a Cuban painter, illustrator and writer of the Vanguardia movement (the Cuban Avant-garde). Along with Víctor Manuel, Amelia Peláez, Fidelio Ponce, Antonio Gattorno, and other masters of this period, he was involved in one of the most fertile moments in Cuban culture. He is considered by critics to be one of the best, and most original, Cuban artists of the 20th century.

Enríquez strived to develop a genuinely Cuban style that, while fueled by surrealism and modernism, took inspiration from Cuba's landscapes, culture, social problems and way of living. He was also considered a rebel, and was often criticized for the allegedly explicit nature of his nudes, and for his bohemian lifestyle.

Born in Zulueta, in the former Cuban province of Las Villas, on August 3, 1900 to a wealthy Cuban family, Carlos Enríquez received little academic training, so his art is considered to be largely self-taught. At a young age he transferred to Havana to complete his bachelor studies, and in 1920 his parents sent him to Philadelphia, where he studied Commerce until 1924. At his insistence, he was permitted to study Painting at the Pennsylvania Academy, where he took a short summer course. Due to differences with his professors he never finished the course, which was the only formal art education he ever received. He returned home the following year, with fellow painter Alice Neel whom he married that year.

Soon after his return, he started painting professionally, while working as an accountant at the Lonja del Comercio (Havana's Stock Exchange). In 1925 he participated in his first exposition, and in 1927 two of his nudes were removed from the Exhibition of New Arts in Havana after being deemed "exaggeratedly realistic". However, 1927 marks the year when the Cuban Vanguardia movement made its first steps, mainly thanks to this exhibition, and many of the artists that participated in it went on to become the leading lights of the movement.

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