Untitled

Cundo Bermudez
Cuba, 1914-2008
“When I was young I wanted to be a writer; although I studied at San Alejandro, I never intended to take
art seriously… I have fun at what I do; the pleasure I get from painting is vital for me. I enjoy art like Mozart
enjoyed his music. Some people are concerned over philosophic pustulates, over universal chaos, over
the atomic bomb; for me, painting is a celebration of form and color, and nothing more. I left Cuba
absolutely disillusioned, perhaps because I had believed totally in the revolution. Between 1962 and 1967,
the government obliterated me; I was neither harassed nor prosecuted, simply ignored. Exile has affected
the individual not the artist; when I arrived in Puerto Rico, I felt as if I had reached a region of Cuba I had
not known previously. In a way, I still feel uprooted, for I do not feel at home anywhere.”
ARTISTS QUOTE
“One of the painters who has contributed most brilliantly to the historical panorama of modern Cuban
painting is Cundo Bermúdez… Most of the scholars who have written about the art of Bermúdez have
concentrated on his cubanidad or Cuba-ness. Indeed, among the most apparent aspects of his diverse
oeuvre are the forms and colors of Cuban architecture, its decorative elements and the vivid suggestions
of indigenous floral forms.” (1999)
EDWARD SULLIVAN, ART HISTORIAN, SOTHEBY’S ESSAY