Provenance

CCG Art Collection, Miami, Florida, USA.

Exhibited

Polk Museum of Art, Lakeland, Florida, USA, August 24 – November 24, 2007.

The Suzanne H. Arnold Art Gallery, Lebanon Valley College, Annville, Pennsylvania, USA, March 13 – April 15, 2007.

Bass Museum of Art, Miami Beach, Florida, USA, July 7 – October 23, 2005.

Literature

Retratos De Carlos Luna, Bass Museum of Art, p. 6, Published 2005, ISBN: 0-9752849-4-0.

Carlos Luna, Personal Histories, Susquehanna Art Museum, Polk Museum of Art & The Suzanne H. Arnold Gallery, Lebanon Valley College, p. 64, Published July 2006, Illustrated in color.

Museum Description

Realista

In this work, the guajiro strikes an aggressive pose and struggles with weapons in each hand while the waters rise near his waistline. Encircled by a full-body halo or mandorla of azure blue water, the Realist becomes an ersatz island, symbolic of Luna’s homeland. The figure expresses anguish and distress, his bright red tongue ablaze with the same red that drips or rather “flowers” from his knives or the red field in the Cuban flag that has become the pocket of his jacket. The Realist has been forced to accept his fate as slave to the realities of geography and politics.

– Scott A. Schweigert ©