ExhibitionApril 25, 2023· By Carol Damian
Rafael Soriano: The Artist as Mystic
Cuban American painter Rafael Soriano (1920–2015) was an acclaimed master of geometric and expressive abstraction and a global figure in the twentieth-century art world. Now he is being recognized in an exhibition that will examine his life’s work and the multiple influences that nurtured his style to become one of the most unique and complex of the times.
The Artist as Mystic features twenty-nine paintings and pastels from the Rafael Soriano Family Collection and private collections. It begins with Soriano’s works, developed during a successful career in Cuba, in a geometric abstract style. After he leaves the island for Miami in 1962, he turns to a transitional, experimental phase, with unique paintings from the 1960s and 1970s reminiscent of surrealist biomorphism that are often considered his most distinguishable and provocative. Working with his own personal visual language, Soriano masters color in remarkable ways that range from the most ethereal and translucent to almost foreboding as he explores deep existential concerns in layered nuances. The exhibition concludes with luminous, mystical imagery in paintings from Soriano’s mature period. His long, prolific career spans several art movements, reinterpreted with technical and painterly expressionism that has long been admired for its virtuosity and spiritual content.
This exhibition at Casa de América will be Soriano’s first retrospective in Madrid. Accompanied by a bilingual English-Spanish catalog with contributions from American, Cuban American, and Cuban scholars, The Artist as Mystic is organized by the McMullen Museum in Boston in conjunction with the Rafael Soriano Foundation, and curated by Elizabeth Thompson Goizueta.
The Artist as Mystic features twenty-nine paintings and pastels from the Rafael Soriano Family Collection and private collections. It begins with Soriano’s works, developed during a successful career in Cuba, in a geometric abstract style. After he leaves the island for Miami in 1962, he turns to a transitional, experimental phase, with unique paintings from the 1960s and 1970s reminiscent of surrealist biomorphism that are often considered his most distinguishable and provocative. Working with his own personal visual language, Soriano masters color in remarkable ways that range from the most ethereal and translucent to almost foreboding as he explores deep existential concerns in layered nuances. The exhibition concludes with luminous, mystical imagery in paintings from Soriano’s mature period. His long, prolific career spans several art movements, reinterpreted with technical and painterly expressionism that has long been admired for its virtuosity and spiritual content.
This exhibition at Casa de América will be Soriano’s first retrospective in Madrid. Accompanied by a bilingual English-Spanish catalog with contributions from American, Cuban American, and Cuban scholars, The Artist as Mystic is organized by the McMullen Museum in Boston in conjunction with the Rafael Soriano Foundation, and curated by Elizabeth Thompson Goizueta.
