Manuel Carbonell was a prominent sculptor who hailed from Cuba and went on to become a star in the art world. The artist was born in 1918 to a family that was involved in sugar plantations. As a kid the Carbonell enjoyed creating and starting making sculptures at an early age. When he was disobedient his parents forbade him to draw. The artist loved the process of creating, of having a fantastic image and idea in your head, and then executing the best of your abilities.
In this clip some outdoor sculptures. What a wonderful addition to any yard!
Another montage of works by Carbonell.
Price range information: Depending on size sculptures range from $5,000 to $50,000.
For his collegiate studies Carbonell attended the national school for the arts located in Havana, Cuba. Usually artists are given tests to see how much experience they have had. Carbonell told them he had no formal schooling, but had been sculpting since a young age. He showed them some examples of his work and he was accepted without having to take preliminary courses.
Whilst in college a great influence in his work was the sculptor Juan Sicre. Sicre was a student of Rodin’s favorite student Antoine Bourdell and made wonderful figurative sculptures. Below is a great example of Sicre’s style of sculpture. Sicre was born in Matanzas, Cuba in 1898. Sicre was a key figure in bringing the European and more modern figure art to Cuba.
In the forties and fifties Carbonell started to build an international reputation for life size, or larger than life size, sculptures celebrating religion and faith as well as the female form.
One piece titled the End of a Race, won an international art award and even appeared on the cover of Reader’s Digest.
In the 1950s Cuba was the Vegas of the Caribbean. Money and nightclubs popped up and Carbonell started his own furniture design company. For this company he was granted a visa to do some shopping for his company in Miami. He left for the states in 1959 and left all of his material possessions in Cuba and arrived in the states with only $200 in his pockets.
His big break came in the states when he gave a sculpture to his publicity agent as payment. A doctor saw it and told the agent he didn’t know he owned a Rodin. This doctor was his first large patron and started his collection by buying three pieces.
Carbonell was very prolific and continued to work until his early nineties and passed away at the age of 93 years old in 2011.
In comparing his art to another artist lets take a look at another sculptor of the figure in an abstracted form, Henry Moore. Moore was based out of Hadham, England. Moore knew that he wanted to be a sculptor at the age of eleven years old. Moore’s father was a mine employee and his parents thought that sculpting like Michelangelo was too time intensive and in fact just another form of manual labor. Here is a great example Henry Moore’s type of sculpture.
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