Artist Emilio Sanchez (American, born Cuba, 1921–1999)
Title Barbados Children
Date 1996
Medium Color lithograph on paper
Dimensions Image: 8 5/16 × 14 1/16 in. (21.1 × 35.7 cm)
Sheet: 12 1/2 × 18 1/4 in. (31.8 × 46.4 cm)
Credit Line Gift from the Emilio Sanchez Foundation, Eskenazi Museum of Art, Indiana University
Accession Number 2011.196
About this Work
Born into one of Cuba’s oldest and wealthiest sugarcane families, Emilio Sanchez was educated by private tutors, his French grandmother, and at boarding schools in Massachusetts, Florida, and Connecticut. With the encouragement of his father, he continued his artistic studies in the United States at the Art Students League and Columbia University School of the Arts, where his absorbed the latest modernist ideas.
Although he remained in New York City (eventually becoming an American citizen), he regularly visited Cuba until Fidel Castro came to power in 1959. Despite his urbanity, Sanchez was drawn to subjects bearing what he called the “picturesque stamp.” Rather than looking toward the bustle of Havana, he turned his attention to the working-class neighborhoods on the outskirts of the city or to the colorful, wooden Colonial and Victorian houses of his youth.
While most of his works are unpopulated, Sanchez protested at being pegged as a “house painter.” Some of his earlier prints offer a glimpse of the country’s people. Although not overtly political, Sanchez’s images show his sympathies with “the real Cubans, the man in the streets or in the country.” In this later print, he focuses only on a stylized depiction of Caribbean people.
The Sidney and Lois Eskenazi Museum of Art has almost 200 works by Sanchez, including paintings, prints, and drawings.
