Cuban painter and draughtsman, born on 17 September 1932 in Havana, died on 16 December 2015 in Saint-Benoît (Réunion).
Life
Roberto Álvarez Ríos trained from 1951 to 1955 at the San Alejandro National School of Fine Arts in Havana. As early as 1955 he exhibited at the 36th Salón de Bellas Artes at the National Museum of Fine Arts in Havana.
In 1958 he settled in Paris and attended drawing and painting classes at the École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts. The following year he took part in the first Paris Biennale, at the Musée d’Art moderne de la Ville de Paris. In Paris he met Roberto Matta and André Breton, who wished to associate him with the Surrealist movement; he chose to remain independent of any group. He lived and worked at La Ruche.
The work
His painting connects with Surrealism through its natural forms and poetic titles, such as Le Blanc d’un univers pour toi regard (1972, oil on canvas), shown at the gallery in 2025. He said he painted a living world, without malice. The El Espacio 23 collection in Miami holds La roue du destin (1971, mixed media on canvas).
Exhibitions and collections
- First Paris Biennale, Musée d’Art moderne de la Ville de Paris, 1959
- Solo exhibition, Galería de Arte Galiano y Concordia, Havana, 1962
- Petits formats, Espace Altura, Paris, 1994
- Galerie Foch, Rodez, 2002; Galerie Hang Art, Paris, 2004
- Latin American Art, Galerie Les Yeux Fertiles, 2022, and A Journey through Latin America, 2025