René Portocarrero

Some sources list his birth year as 1914 rather than 1912.

The recorded working language is Spanish. Work by René Portocarrero is recorded in the collections of Minneapolis Institute of Art, Museum of Modern Art, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, National Museum of Fine Arts, Argentina and National Museum in Warsaw.

• Name — René Portocarrero • Born — 24 February 1912 • Birthplace — Havana, Cuba • Died — 7 April 1985 • Place of death — Havana, Cuba • Education — San Alejandro Academy of Fine Arts (brief attendance) • Known for — Painting, murals, ceramics, book illustration • Movement — Cuban modernism; Vanguardia

Portocarrero was born in the El Cerro district of Havana. He attended the San Alejandro Academy of Fine Arts but did not complete formal training and is frequently described as largely self-taught. His first solo exhibition was held at the Lyceum of Havana in 1934.

According to El País, Portocarrero first exhibited outside Cuba in 1945 at the Julien Levy Gallery in New York. He was among the artists included in the Museum of Modern Art’s 1944 exhibition Modern Cuban Painters, an early major U.S. presentation of modern Cuban art. By the early 1940s he developed series that became central to his reputation, including Interiores del Cerro (1943) and other bodies of work that drew on Cuban interiors, popular festivities, and ornamental form. In 1951 he received Cuba’s National Painting Prize for Homenaje a Trinidad, which the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes describes as a precursor to later Havana-themed landscapes. A major retrospective opened in December 1984 at the Museo Español de Arte Contemporáneo (Madrid), drawing on collections from Cuba’s Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes; it remained on view into early 1985.

Museum and curatorial sources describe Portocarrero’s practice as spanning painting and works on paper, often characterized by dense ornament, vivid color, and recurring motifs linked to Havana’s architecture, interior spaces, and festive or popular imagery.

El País reported that in 1963 his series Flores y color en Cuba received the grand prize at the VII Bienal de São Paulo, and that he was later honored at the Venice Biennale as an invited artist. (Institutional Cuban sources describe the São Paulo distinction as the International Sambra Prize awarded for the best group of works presented.)

Portocarrero died in Havana on 7 April 1985. El País attributed his death to renal and pulmonary complications in the context of fragile health. A Reuters report (reproduced in a Museum of Fine Arts, Houston collection biography) stated that relatives suggested his death may have been related to burns from a kitchen accident about a week earlier.

René Portocarrero is recorded with the occupation draftsperson. Recorded as painter, sculptor, illustrator and draftsperson.

Where René Portocarrero came from, and how René Portocarrero was formed. Born on 24 February 1922.

Portocarrero’s work is held by museums in Cuba and internationally, including the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes de Cuba and the Museum of Modern Art (New York). Works by Portocarrero are also in the collection of the National Gallery of Canada.