Jose Bernal 1947 Abstract Oil Painting on Canvas "Opera Singer"

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Jose Bernal 1947 Abstract Oil Painting on Canvas "Opera Singer"

Offered for sale is an oil painting on canvas titled … Read more Jose Bernal 1947 Abstract Oil Painting on Canvas "Opera Singer"

Offered for sale is an oil painting on canvas titled "Opera Singer" by Cuban-American artist Jose Bernal. The painting is signed lower right and dated 1947. It is titled on the back of the giltwood frame and is accompanied by a compact disc about the artist.

José Bernal Romero (January 8, 1925 – April 19, 2010) was a Cuban-American artist, born in Santa Clara, Cuba, in the former province of Las Villas (now Villa Clara). He became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1980.

Bernal's aesthetics stemmed from his Cuban birth and the experience of exile and renewal. His art has been described as modernist, abstract, and expressionist. The term "postmodernist" also may be applied to Bernal's diverse and complex body of work, specifically as he rejected the notion of the new in art, a characteristic imbued in postmodern theory.

As a child, Bernal was privately tutored in art and music. He graduated from Normal Teachers College in 1945 and began teaching at a series of public and private schools in the province of Las Villas. Simultaneously, he enrolled in the Escuela de Artes Plásticas Leopoldo Romañach where he earned his MFA. His musical and visual creations were performed and exhibited in Santa Clara and Havana.

In 1961, during the Bay of Pigs Invasion, Bernal was among the throngs of Cubans arrested for unpatriotic behavior, and was confined for eleven days in the gymnasium of the Marta Abreu University in Santa Clara. Bernal's offense was refusal to work in the fields cutting sugar cane. After his release, the threat of execution haunted him and his wife, and they cautiously initiated plans to leave the country with their three young children. It took more than a year to obtain visas.[1] With the help of the Methodist Church, the Bernals were able to board a Pan Am flight for the United States of America in June 1962.

The Bernal family entered the United States at Miami, Florida. Their stay in the state was brief – a few months, on account of the scarcity of employment. Subsequently, in autumn of 1962 they relocated to Chicago, Illinois. Bernal confronted the need to support his family and, because of language barriers, became employed in a factory designing artistic materials for commercial purposes. Meanwhile, he continued to produce personal art. Critics observed that his work during this period revealed a transformation affected by the change in geographical environment. While in Cuba his palette did not reflect the brilliant, intense colors of his native land; but in Chicago he began to incorporate the tropical hues of his Caribbean homeland into his art.

In 1964, Bernal's art portfolio was reviewed by an executive at Marshall Field's and he was offered a position as Senior Designer. There, the director of Field's fine arts gallery persuaded Bernal to exhibit his impressionist portraits, landscapes and still lifes. Shortly thereafter, Betty Parsons, art dealer, artist, and collector, discovered Bernal's work and began a series of orders to show and sell his paintings at Dayton's art galleries in Minneapolis. The lucrative connection made it possible for Bernal to give up his job at Marshall Field's and return to school where he could pursue his dual dream of teaching and painting."[1]

After being granted an MFA evaluation by the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1970, Bernal returned to teaching art while continuing to create and exhibit his works. Lydia Murman, art critic of the New Art Examiner, wrote about Bernal's 1981 solo exhibition of collage and assemblage: "Bernal's works involve the viewer because they resurrect the concern for art as a communicative force. The viewer reacts to the classical arrangement, in which found objects are manipulated with a respect for their physical properties and for their potential symbolic value. While warm wood, old newspaper print, tarnished metal, and antique objects produce an aura that absorbs the viewer and stirs archetypal images within his subconscious, some works, such as "Balancing the Unbalanced," in which a faucet is perceived as a faucet, invite the viewer to open the dialogue concerning substance and illusion, art and reality.

Bernal has artwork in a number of permanent collections, including:[7]

San Antonio Museum of Art, San Antonio, Texas
Tucson Museum of Art and Historic Block, Tucson, Arizona
Asheville Art Museum, Asheville, North Carolina
Cameron Art Museum, Wilmington, North Carolina
McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, Texas
Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, Evanston, Illinois
The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois
Institute for Latino Studies/University of Notre Dame, Indiana
Art Museum of the Americas, OAS, Washington, D.C.
El Museo del Barrio, New York City
DePaul Art Museum, Chicago, Illinois
Loyola University Museum of Art, Chicago, Illinois
Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain

Dimensions: Height: 13.5 in (34.29 cm)
Width: 11.5 in (29.21 cm)
Depth: 1.5 in (3.81 cm) See less