Arts and Literature of Cuba

The Fountain of the Antilles in Las Tunas represents an ancient legend about the Caribbean islands. It was created in 1977 by the sculptor Rita Longa. She also promoted the installation of more than 120 pieces of sculpture in her hometown of Las Tunas, including a monument in front of the city’s Communist Party headquarters (opposite page).

The rise of the second generation of the Vanguardia, and the continuing activity of members of the first generation, ush- ered in what some art historians have called the classical peri- od of Cuban modernism. The artwork produced during the late 1930s and 1940s, in the view of various critics, tended to be more mature, and the exploration of what it meant to be Cuban more nuanced. The “assimilation of modern forms,” argues Abigail McEwen, an art history professor and scholar of Latin American art, “resulted in more painterly and metaphorical

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