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Biography
- Manzanillo, Cuba, 1914–Havana, Cuba, 2002
Photo by Ricardo G. Elías
Girona was a sculptor, painter, cartoonist, and writer. In his home town of Manzanillo, at the age of 13, he exhibited a set of free-standing caricatures of prominent political figures and members of the local writers’ circle (Grupo Literario de Manzanillo), to which his father, Julio, belonged. In this debut, various characteristics of his later work can already be seen: the cross between the visual and literary arts, his love of figure, line, and letter, his interest in socio-political commentary, his humor. In 1932, having moved with his family to Havana, he enrolled in the San Alejandro Academy, where he studied sculpture with Juan José Sicre. In 1934 he left for Paris with a scholarship. He attended sculpture classes at the Académie Ranson, a school patronized by the elderly Maillol, and caught the last vestiges of the peak of the Parisian art scene. He traveled throughout Europe and the Mediterranean, cycling around Greece and reaching Egypt and the pyramids.In 1937 Girona was in the United States, living in Greenwich Village, associating with other Latin Americans and sharing their political passions. This circle of friends brought him into contact with the leftist press, including New Masses and La Voz, a Spanish language newspaper with its headquarters in the “Little Spain” section of the Village, a newspaper largely inspired by its support of the Republican cause in the Spanish Civil War. He worked for this newspaper for the two to three years of its existence, submitting daily political cartoons and winning recognition from the Congress of American Artists. In 1939, when the Spanish Republicans were defeated and the newspaper closed, Girona returned to Cuba, where he worked as a caricaturist for the newspaper Hoy. Soon he departed for Mexico City, where he worked at the Taller de Gráfica Popular, doing lithography and selling prints in their gallery.
Back in New York, he attended classes with Will Barnet at the Art Students League. He moved to a studio in Brooklyn and married Ilse Erythropel, daughter of the former German ambassador to Cuba and once fellow sculpture student at San Alejandro. In 1943, with the entry of the United States in World War II, inspired by the experience of the International Brigades in Spain, Girona volunteered to fight as an antifascist in the U.S. Army. He served in England, Belgium, and France for two years. After the war, benefiting from the G.I. Bill, he enrolled again at the Art Students League, where he now studied with Morris Kantor and where his life as a painter formally began. Part of the New York School of Abstract Expressionism, a member of “the Club” of New York artists on 8th Street, Girona had his first New York exhibition at the Artists’ Gallery on Lexington Avenue in 1954, and was soon exhibiting at the Bertha Schaefer Gallery on 57th Street. From there he went on to exhibit in major galleries in America and Europe.
In 1963, he was invited to teach graphics at the Werkkunstschule in Krefeld, Germany. In 1967 his wife Ilse died, and his cultural affinities started drawing him back to Cuba, first a few months at a time, and then for longer periods. He was recognized as an influential contributor to the modern art world in Cuba. A first major retrospective show was held at the National Museum of Fine Arts in Havana in 1986; a second retrospective was held posthumously at the Museum in 2009. To his constant activity as a painter, he had added a new track as a writer. A first book of stories of his experiences in World War II – Seis horas y más—was published in Cuba in 1990 and won the national Premio de la Crítica that same year. This was followed by a number of publications of short stories and poems, including Música barroca (1992), Memorias sin título (1994), La corbata roja (1998), Café frente al mar (2000), Páginas de mi diario (2005, posthumous), De la voz a la letra: Los cuentos de Julio Girona, volumes I and II (2010, posthumous).
Girona was a member of the Union of Artists and Writers in Havana and winner of the Premio Nacional de Artes Plasticas in Cuba in 1998, among other honors. He remained artistically active as both a painter and a writer to his very last days.
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Chronology
1914
Born in Manzanillo, Cuba1927
Exhibit of caricatures, La Fortuna shop windows, Manzanillo1930-1934
Enrolls at the San Alejandro Academy; studies sculpture with Juan José Sicre, Havana1934-1936
Receives scholarship for study in Europe; studies sculpture with Charles Alexandre Malfray at the Academie Ranson, Paris1937
Arrives in New York1937-1939
Works as daily political cartoonist for the New York based, Spanish language newspaper La Voz1939
Returns to Cuba; works as political cartoonist for the newspaper Hoy, Havana1940
Travels to Mexico; works at the Taller de Gráfica Popular1941-1942
Returns to New York; studies with Will Barnet at the Art Students League1943
Marries sculptor Ilse Erythropel1943-1945
Serves in U.S. Army in England, Belgium, and France1946
Returns to New York; dedicates himself primarily to painting1950
Moves with his wife and two daughters to Teaneck, NJ1950-1956
Attends Art Students League in New York; studies with Morris Kantor1963-1965
Instructor of printmaking at Werkkunstschule, Krefeld, Germany1967
Ilse Erythropel dies1968
Begins to visit Cuba regularly2002
Dies in Havana
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1990s
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Exhibitions
One-man shows
1934
Sculpture exhibit, College of Architects, Havana1939
Lyceum de La Habana, Havana1948
Lyceum de La Habana, Havana1954
Artists Gallery, New York, NY (first NY exhibit)
University of Havana, Havana1956
Bertha Schaefer Gallery, New York, NY1955
Galeria Sudamericana New York, exhibition of Cuban paintings1958
Galería Color-Luz, Havana
Galerie Gunar, Dusseldorf, Germany (with Ilse Erythropel)
Stadtische Kunsthalle, Recklinghausen, Germany1960
Galerie Weiss, Kassel, Germany
Arts Club, Chicago, Ill.
Galerie Seide, Hannover, Germany1961
Bertha Schaefer Gallery, New York, NY1963
Bertha Schaefer Gallery, New York, NY
Werkkunstschule, Krefeld, Germany1968
Casa de la Cultura, Plaza, Havana1975
Galería Habana, Havana1978
Casa de la Cultura, Plaza, Havana1980
Casa de la Cultura, Plaza, Havana
Casa de la Cultura, Bejucal, Havana1983
“Jardinero del garabato” Galería Habana, Havana
“Esfinges de la Guerra” Galería Plaza Vieja, Havana1986
Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes: Retrospectiva, 1940-1986, Havana1988
Galería Angel Romero, Madrid1990
Galerie Paris-Bastille, Paris1992
Galería Habana, Havana1994
Galería Charles Chaplin, Havana1995
Mujeres, Galería MirArte, Centro de Prensa Internacional, Havana1996
Galería Ángel Romero, Madrid1997
Galería Espacio Abierto, Havana
“Memorias sin título”, Centro Cultural Pablo de la Torriente Brau, Havana1998
Galería Lausin & Blasco, Zaragoza
Click here for more info1999
Ventana abierta, Galería La Acacia, Havana2003
Centro Cultural Pablo de la Torriente Brau, Havana2007
La matita pungente di Julio Girona, French Institute, Florence, Italy2009
Julio Girona: Una historia personal, Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, HavanaGroup shows
1934
XVII Salon de Bellas Artes, Havana1935
Exposición Nacional de Pintura y Escultura, Havana1937
Exposición de Arte Moderno, Salon del Centro Dependiente, Havana1938
II Exposición Nacional de Pintura y Escultura, Havana1940
Exposición 1940, Juárez, Mexico1941
Exposición de Pintura y Escultura Moderna, Lyceum de La Habana, Havana
Exposición del Taller de Gráfica Popular de Mexico, Lyceum de La Habana, Havana1943
Exposición del Patronato de las Artes Plásticas, Lyceum y Lawn Tennis Club, Havana1944
Legación de Cuba en Moscú, Moscow1945
2. Salón Vicente Escobar, Havana
Modern Cuban Painters, Port-au-Prince, Haiti1946
Pintura cubana moderna, Palacio de Bellas Artes, Mexico; Washington D.C.; La Plata, Argentina
III Exposición Nacional de Pintura y Escultura, Havana1948
College of Architects, Havana1949
Contemporary Cuban Paintings, Watkins Gallery, American University, Washington, D.C.
International Watercolor Exhibition, Brooklyn Museum, New York, NY
Cuban Watercolors, South Loan Gallery, Kansas City, Mo.1951
Art Cubain Contemporain, Musée National d’Art Moderne, Paris
V Salon Nacional, Havana1952
Artists’ Gallery, New York, NY1953
Cuban Paintings, Whyte Gallery, Washington, D.C.
VI Salon Nacional, Havana1956
Fact and Fantasy, Bertha Schaefer Gallery, New York, NY
XXVIII Biennial, Venice
VIII Salón Nacional, Havana1957
LXII American Exhibition, Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Ill.
Arts Club of Chicago, Chicago, Ill.
Modern Cuban Painting, Galeria Sudamericana, New York, NY
6th Annual Exhibition of New York Artists, Stable Gallery, New York, NY
American Paintings, 1945-1957, Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minneapolis, Minn.
Nine Painters, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisc.
Art Lending Service, Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY
Voss Gallery, Southampton, NY
Bertha Schaefer Gallery Group, New York, NY1958
Collage in America, Zabriskie Gallery, New York, NY
Collage International, Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, Tex.
Realités Nouvelles, Recklinghausen, Germany
New Jersey Artists, The Newark Museum, Newark, NJ
Bertha Schaefer Gallery, New York, NY1959
20th Biennial International Watercolor Exhibition, Brooklyn Museum, New York, NY
Bertha Schaefer Gallery, New York, NY1960
Galerie Seide, Hannover, Germany1963
Cincuentenario del Museo Nacional, 1913-1963, Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Havana1964
Bertha Schaefer Gallery, New York, NY
Magnet: New York, Galeria Bonino, New York, NY
Magnet: Museo de Bellas Artes, Mexico1965
New Jersey and the Artist, New Jersey State Museum, Trenton, NJ1967
Art from New Jersey, 1967, New Jersey State Museum, Trenton, NJ1982
Salón Paisaje 82, Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Havana1984
1a. Bienal, Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Havana1986
2a. Bienal, Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Havana1992
Galerie Paris- Bastille, Paris 30. Anniversario del Taller Gráfica de La Habana, Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Havana1993
Museo Nacional de Chile, Santiago1994
Taller Experimental de Gráfica de la Catedral, Havana1995
1. Salon de Arte Cubano Contemporaneo, Havana1997
Galería La Acacia, Havana2000
Tono a tono, exposicion de arte abstracto, Hotel Habana Libre, Havana2001
Dos más uno no es igual a tres, Galería L., University of Havana, Havana2003
Jazztracción in memoriam, homenaje a Julio Girona y Frank Emilio, Museo de la Música, Havana2008
“Palabra y Pincel” Museo de Bellas Artes, Havana
Consejo nacional de artes plasticas – permanent exhibit of honorees of the Premio de Artes Plasticas, Havana
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Awards
1956
Accession prize, Merit Award, VIII Salon Nacional de Pintura y Escultura, Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Havana1958
Accession prize, New Jersey Artists, Newark Museum, Newark, NJ1965-66
Cintas Foundation Fellowship, New York, NY1967
Accession prize, New Jersey State Museum, Trenton, NJ1990
Cuban Premio Nacional de la Crítica for his volume of short stories, Seis horas y más1991
National Culture Medal, Cuba1998
Premio Nacional de Artes Plásticas, Cuba
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Media
- Selected articles, reviews, conferences about Julio Girona published since 2000
Castañeda, Mireya, “Mirar, para conocer a Julio Girona,” Granma Internacional Digital, December 18, 2011.
Codina, Norberto, “Pintores que escriben: conferencia sobre Julio Girona,” Havana, Fundación Alejo Carpentier, March 18, 2011.
de la Hoz, Pedro, “Vitalidad de Julio Girona,” Havana, Periódico Cubarte, December 28,
2002.Díaz, Estrella, “Julio Girona: Manzanillero universal,” La Jiribilla, 2003.
García Ronda, Denia, “De la voz a la letra: los cuentos de Julio Girona,” Havana, 20° Feria Internacional del Libro, February 14, 2011.
Girona, Ilse [daughter], “La clase de pintura/The painting lesson,” in catalogue for the exhibition Julio Girona: una historia personal, January 23
– March 15, 2009, Havana, Museo de Bellas Artes, 2009.Girona, Ilse [daughter],”Julio Girona: A Cuban Painter at Home and Abroad,” in Lorini, A. and Bassosi, D., Cuba in the World, the World in
Cuba, Florence University Press, Florence, Italy, 2009, pp. 213-224.Hernández, Orlando, “Sin título,” in catalogue for the exhibition “Ventana abierta,” Galeria La Acacia, Havana, 1999-2000.
“La provincia Granma rendirá homenaje al escritor cubano Julio Girona,” Periódico Cubarte, February 13, 2002.Laux, Tomislav, Kubanische Kunst heute, Werbeunion Schwein GmbH & Co. KG, Germany, 2001/02.
Suárez Díaz, Ana M., “Julio Girona: Entre la satira y el cubanísimo choteo,” Periódico Cubarte, May 7, 2011.
Vega, Elsa, “El pentagrama plástico de Julio Girona/The plastic pentagram of Julio Girona,” in catalogue for the exhibition Julio Girona: una historia personal, January 23 – March 15, 2009, Havana, Museo de Bellas Artes, 2009.
