Visit to Taller [atelier] Aguilera

Sr. Aguilera

José Julián Aguilera Vicente (Santiago de Cuba, 1933) is a painter, a sculptor and a graphic artist. He has worked as a professional artist and educator at various institutions, including the University of Oriente, teaching drawing, engraving and other subjects. He is affiliated with both local and national arts and cultural institutions. Vicente has won 33 provincial and national awards, participating in 30 international group shows, 11 one-man shows abroad and more than 100 exhibits in Cuba. The largest collection of his works can be found in the Emilio Bacardí Museum in Santiago de Cuba. 
Source:  http://www.meridian.org/ARTS/Cuba/artists.html

In the back room at the studio.

This series is by another artist at Taller Aguilera, possibly Aguilera's son? His "signature" motif is the white polar bear.

ART

LIFE

Art Card:  Padre Pico No. 1, Cromoxilografia, 1965.

[Source: lifted from Wikipedia, with some editing.] In the chromoxylography process, the printer engraved the image on the woodblock, carving away areas not to be printed (or inked). A separate wood block was used for each of the three primary colours, with the ink coating the uncut areas. The printer engraved the image to the finer end grain of the woodblock. For more complicated work the carver worked on the end grain of the wood, and, with the use of fine hatchings to the wood that were inked separately, achieved the look of blended colours.

Variations in tone were achieved with skillful carving to create the appearance of stipple. To create a blend of colours, blocks were hatched horizontally and diagonally to allow applications of multiple colours that resulted in browns, greens and greys. "A blockmaker would know whether to engrave thin white lines (for an almost solid tone), medium white lines (a mid-tone) or crosshatchings (leaving larger or smaller lozenges of colour to achieve sometimes little more than a faint tint when seen at a normal viewing distance)." Overlapping diagonal lines were carved to create dot-like shapes on the surface that took less ink and resulted in paler tones.