José Bernal
José Bernal
(Artist)
José Bernal (January 8, 1925-) is a Cuban-American artist. Bernal was born in Santa Clara, Las Villas, Cuba, but became a naturalized U.S.A. citizen in 1980.
The art of José Bernal is recognized and distinguished by his richly independent works that stem from his fertile and heightened imagination, his Cuban birth, and his experience of exile and renewal. Bernal's distinct approach to his diverse and prolific oeuvre from 1937 to present incorporates references that at times hint of masters of the distant past or those celebrated in more recent decades. His art has been described as modernist, abstract, expressionist, but the wide range of his work defies categorization. The term postmodernist also may be applied to Bernal's diverse and complex body of work, specifically as he rejects the concept of the new in art, a characteristic imbued in the theory of postmodernism.
Bernal was impassioned with art and music since early childhood, aesthetic endeavors that his parents encouraged and supported. His art studies led him to teach art, as well as to earn his MFA from the Escuela de Artes Plásticas Leopoldo Romañach. His musical and visual creations were well recognized, performed, and exhibited in Santa Clara and Havana. But, in 1961, "... during the Bay of Pigs Invasion, Bernal was among the throngs of Cubans arrested for unpatriotic behavior[.] ... After his release, the threat of execution haunted [him] and his wife, and they cautiously initiated plans to leave the country with their three young children. It took more than a year to obtain visas ... [but finally] ... left Cuba in June, 1962. 1
Miami, Florida was the U.S.A.'s port of entry for the Bernal family, but the stay was a brief few months on account of the scarcity of employment; in autumn of 1962 they relocated to Chicago, Illinois. Bernal confronted the need to support his family and, because of language barriers, became employed in a factory designing artistic materials for commercial purposes. Meanwhile Bernal continued to produce his personal art. Critics have observed that during this period his work revealed a transformation affected by the change in geographical environment. While in Cuba the palette of his art did not reflect the brilliant, intense colors of his native land; but in Chicago he began to incorporate in his artwork the tropical hues of his Caribbean homeland.
In 1964, Bernal's art portfolio was reviewed by an executive at Marshall Field's and was offered a position as a Senior Designer. There, the director of its fine arts gallery persuaded Bernal to exhibibit his impressionistic portraits, landscapes and still lifes. Shortly thereafter, "... Betty Parsons, art dealer and collector, discovered Bernal's work and began a series of orders to show and sell his paintings[.] ... The lucrative connection made it possible for Bernal to give up his job at [Marshall] Field's and return to school where he could pursue his dual dream of teaching and painting." 2
After being granted an MFA evaluation by the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1970, Bernal returned to teaching art while simultaneously continuing to create and exhibit his works. Lydia Murman, art critic for the New Art Examiner, wrote about Bernal's 1981 solo exhibition of collages and assemblages: "Bernal's works involve the viewer because they resurrect the concern for art as a communicative force. The viewer reacts to the classical arrangement, in which found objects are manipulated with a respect for their physical properties and for their potential symbolic value. While warm wood, old newspaper print, tarnished metal, and antique objects produce an aura that absorbs the viewer and stirs archetypal images within his subconscious, some works, such as "Balancing the Unbalanced," in which a faucet is perceived as a faucet, invite the viewer to open the dialogue concerning substance and illusion, art and reality." 3
"Although Bernal and his family didn't realize it, the first signs of Parkinson disease began to appear during the 1980s, and he was eventually diagnosed in 1993. His courage never wavered, and he continued to work, to move forward and fight back against the ravages of the disease[.] ... In 2004, Bernal [proposed] to the National Parkinson Foundation [in Miami, Florida] ... to donate a number of his paintings, which would be auctioned to benefit the foundation. Bernal's tremendous contribution has now expanded to some 300 works of art." 4
Bernal's work is annotated in two of the books by Dorothy Chaplik on Latin American art, 5 but in her essay "The Art of José Bernal" 6 she discusses Bernal's prolific, diverse, and original oeuvre, as well as describes Bernal's artistic process as he traverses life's challenges, including political unrest in Cuba, his personal battle with Parkinson disease, and his steadfast passion for his life affirming art.
References
1. Dorothy Chaplik, "The Art of José Bernal," essay for proposed monograph, as it appears in Artnet's Artist Works Catalogue [1].
2. Ibid.
3. Lydia Murman, "Collage & Assemblage: One Man Show, 1981," New Art Examiner, January, 1982.
4. "José Bernal Tribute (The Art of Fighting Back: Honoring José Bernal)," Parkinson Report Magazine,[2] vol. XVII, issue 2, Spring, 2006, p.29, front cover.
5. Dorothy Chaplik, "Latin American Arts and Cultures," Davis Publications, Inc., Chapter 7: The Modern World, p.112. ISBN 0-87192-547-8, and "Defining Latin American Art/Hacia una definición del arte latinoamericano," McFarland & Co., Inc., Publishers, pp. 96-97. ISBN 0-7864-1728-5.
6. Dorothy Chaplik, "The Art of José Bernal," essay for proposed monograph, as it appears in Artnet's Artist Works Catalogue [3].
External Links
José Bernal on Artnet's Artist Works Catalogues [4]
Salvador Dalí, Bernard Buffet, and Parkinson disease.