Manuel Carbonell (October 25, 1918 – November 10, 2011 was regarded as the last of the Cuban Master Sculptors.

He was part of the generation of Cuban artists, which includes Wifredo Lam and Agustin Cardenas, that studied at the Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes “San Alejandro”, Havana Cuba. Carbonell’s inexhaustible vision and his ever changing-style are the product of a brilliant talent and academic background. Ceaselessly searching for the essence of form and the absence of details, he empowered a sense of strength, monumentality and simplicity to his work. At 92 years of age, he had continued to work in his studio.

Carbonell was born on October 25, 1918, in Sancti Spiritus (“Holy Spirit”), Cuba. He had two sisters the older, Josephine and the younger Angela. His father alone came from a family of eighteen brothers and sisters. The family history has its roots in early sugar farming, from the early 1800s.

At an early age the family moved to Cienfuegos and Carbonell went to study at Cienfuegos primary school, this proved to be the beginnings of many long lasting friendships, even then he was known and recognized as the person so in admiration of art, and consumed with drawing and carving. Continuing on to his more formative academic years, in Havana he attended Belen, a Jesuit Preparatory Catholic High School where he excelled in the classes that involved art or history.

Creativity.

Carbonell first realized he wanted to be a sculptor when he was eight or nine years old. He was always making little figures with clay. And whenever He found a piece of paper, He would doodle little figures on it. His harshest punishment as a child was when his mother forbade him to draw. Having the understanding that a piece of paper could be torn apart but not a sculpture, held the idea of lasting permanence to the thought of creating. To this day he becomes depressed when he is not involved in the process of creation, he becomes impossible. “Something curious happens to me when I sit down to begin the process of translating the images in my imagination into this third dimension. I see the whole piece finished, actually totally finished, in my minds eye, even before I begin. But, as we all know, imagination can be very treacherous.” To describe Carbonell’s sculptures they have the force of Rodin, the monumentality of Moore and the simplicity of Mallot, but with a personal style and interpretation.

Education.

In 1937, He wanted to learn about art and found out about “San Alejandro”, the renowned Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes (National Academy of Fine Arts) in Havana. When he arrived, they asked him what previous training he had. Explaining, he told them he had none. The school wanted him to go through a preliminary process for two years prior to attending, however he managed to prove himself with a clay carving that he had made that following weekend and they accepted him as a student on the spot. Carbonell was eighteen years old and barely beginning at San Alejandro when he fell down some stairs. The injury was very severe; one of his kidneys had literally exploded as a result of the impact. He spent nearly one year paralyzed, unable to move. He couldn’t attend classes of course, the despair he felt, lying there, all that time was immeasurable. But little by little he learned to walk again, he just stubbornly refused to give up, finally able to return to San Alejandro. At the Academy Carbonell studied under the guidance of Juan José Sicre, a former student of Antoine Bourdelle, Rodin’s favorite disciple. In 1945 Carbonell graduated with the title of Professor of Drawing and Sculpture. Carbonell met and worked alongside some great artist, Fidelio Ponce, Victor Manuel, Amelia Pelaez, Estopinan and many more. Artistic excellence, meant one must measure up to maximum standards or smash it into pieces and start again, that was the norm.

Beginnings as a sculptor.

His classical and religious period developed between 1945 and 1959 some of his many important commissions included the stone carvings bas-reliefs of the Twelve Stations of the Cross, along with The Last Rites located at Las Lomas Del Jacan in San Miguel de los Banos. Last Rites, was exhibited at the National Capitol in Havana. He also sculpted a statue of the Virgin Mary for the Association of Catholic University students in Havana. A life size wood carving, crucifixion for the chapel at the Covadonga Sugar mill in Las Villas, Cuba.
Carbonell’s work received immediate recognition. Dr. Roberto Lopez-Goldaras, the art critic of Havana’s Diario De La Marina, in Havana, said in 1952 about his work, “We foresee for the young and distinguished sculptor Manuel Carbonell a great future; (he) who had been able to conceive a sculpture like eternity, will without a doubt, earn himself a glorious name, which is already an euphoric name, accredited among the literary and artistic names of Cuba.”

Carbonell carving out of Capellania stone, typical of Cuba, this resembles granite because of its density.
Carbonell participated in numerous national competitions and was the recipient of many awards. The life-size stone carving Fin de una raza (End of a race) earned him his first international award in 1954, for the III Bienal Hispanoamericana de Arte, in Barcelona, Spain. The piece became part of the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts in Havana; it appeared on the cover of Reader’s Digest magazine in May 1956.

Professional journey.

MANUEL CARBONELL AND WILFREDO LAM.(1952)

For the first Commercial television broadcast, Union Radio Television, Carbonell was the host and interviewer for a weekly television program where he interviewed artist as his topic of discussion, to include Wifredo Lam, amongst others. He worked in various aspects of television and production whereby he won an award in set design for the ‘Union De La Cronica Tele-Radial Diaria” in the second festival. By 1954 Carbonell left for Europe traveling and visiting museums and more museums in such countries as Spain, Italy, France. A nomad through the museums of Europe proved to inspire Carbonell as he studied the art of the Impressionist and Abstract artists, which inspired a change in direction to give form a sense of movement.

Included in his various business ventures, he owned an operated his own Interior Design business “Carbonell Studio”. Where he designed from French to Modern furniture incorporating his other beloved interest of creating an environment. Ultimately this would provide the perfect opportunity for defecting and leaving his homeland, with the understanding he was granted a visa for a purchasing trip to Miami having an ulterior motive.

Exile to New York City.

In 1959, Carbonell fled Cuba where he could no longer live under a totalitarian regime. Leaving behind his wealth, his position and his sculptures, and most importantly his family, he arrived in New York City with only his tremendous talent and $200. He initially took up residency at the YMCA.

Although deeply depressed at first, he proceeded to experiment with newly acquired freedom of expression. His early work in his new country shows a constant search for beauty and perfection. His intrinsic fascination with the human body and the basic shapes of nature, led him to a very personal and distinctive style. He moved away from his classical and religious period, in Cuba in the 1940s and 1950s through the commencement and development of his modern expression of the 1960s, culminating in Madison Avenue, then pinnacle of the art world.

It started almost haphazardly and by chance. As payment to his then public relations manager Ted Materna and Associates he provided one of his sculptures. A very prominent doctor, Paul Henkind, then Chief of the Department of Ophthalmology at Monte Fiore Hospital, NYC noticed the incredible sculpture and stated to the gentleman “I didn’t know you owned a Rodin”? He insisted in meeting Carbonell to see his work and showed up unannounced at his studio, that same evening with his wife they purchased three Carbonells of their own and became his first patron.

Shortly after in 1961, Manuel Carbonell introduced himself to Dr Fred Schoneman, the influential and renowned Gallery owner, who was impressed with what he saw of Carbonells work, and invited him to become the gallery’s first and only modern sculptor. The gallery exhibited Carbonell’s sculptures alongside paintings of Impressionist masters, such as Braque, Chagall, Monet, Dufy, Pissarro, Picasso, Gaugin, Renior and others. He lived and worked in a loft studio, located at what is referred to today as Soho. By 1963, he celebrated the first of his seven bi-annual “One Man Show’s” at the renowned Schoneman Gallery, Madison Avenue, in New York City, a collaboration exceeding twelve years.

For his first exhibition at Schonemans, Carbonell departed from clay and plaster forms and worked in hammered metals. During this time, one sensed the influence of Pablo Gargallo. In 1967 he extended his frontier to include another one-man show in San Francisco at the Maxwell Galleries. By 1971 the Sculptor held two exhibits, one again at Schoneman and the other at Bacardi Gallery in Miami. At this time, Carbonell moved from acclaimed hammered metals and patina bronzes to high-polished bronzes. This new work took on a completely different turn, becoming more abstract. Rounded volumes replaced the elongated anatomical shapes, present in Lovers, Madonna of the Moon and Figurative Form. During an exhibition at Galerie Moos, in 1972, in Montreal Canada the artist unveiled new subject matters through high-polish bronze as exemplified by Sea Lion, Sea Horses, Snail and Mermaid.

Randall Galleries took control and ownership of Schoneman Galleries in 1973 while Carbonell was preparing an exhibit as a tribute to Dance. The Dancer series are of flowing and delicate movements in this period, climaxed with his show in New York “Homage and Ballet” to benefit the City Center in 1974.

Reuniting with family.

Carbonell took in his two nephews, in 1960, Ricardo 15 and Luis 13 to live with him in New Jersey to save them from being inducted into Castro’s military army. Soon enough, nine months later his father Manuel and his sisters Angela and Josefina with her 2 year-old daughter, Clara were able to leave Cuba and come to Miami. Anxious to rejoin his family, he moved his studio to Miami in 1974 and went into seclusion and concentrated on important private commissions. The following years in 1977 Carbonell created the “Virgin of Fatima”, for the Blue Army Shrine, his first commissioned bronze monument in the United States: a 26-foot high statue weighing 12 tons is permanently placed on top of 150 foot shrine in Washington, New Jersey. This statue is one of the largest works cast in bronze in America during the twentieth century. Another impressive monumental sculpture during this period, a composition 15 feet in height of a horse and rider, balanced in only two points, which was commissioned by Burt Reynolds for the entrance of the Burt Reynolds Jupiter Theater, in Jupiter, Florida.

The Awards formally presented by The South Florida Entertainment Writers Associations (SFEWA), an organization of major media theater critics from Dade, Broward and Palm Beach Counties, decided to name them in the name sake of Carbonell, as he signified and represented one who devotes his life to art. He additionally designed and cast the first awards which were oval in theme. In November 15, 1976 they became and still are called, The Carbonell Awards.

In 1976, Carbonell held a monographic exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum and Art Center, in Miami, Florida, on view at the opening of their newest gallery, where he introduced more than 20 of his newest works. (Now incorporated into, The Frost Museum). Between the late seventies and mid-eighties, the artist worked on private commissions and ventured creatively in designing jewelry and furniture. At this time he had several one-man shows that were also presented at different galleries during this decade, including Steiner Gallery in Bal Harbor, West Avenue gallery in Palm Beach, Camino Real in Boca Raton, all in Florida and Ann Jacob Gallery, in Marietta, Georgia.

The White House.

Internationally known Cuban Sculptor Manuel Carbonell, presenting his bronze eagle, as a symbol of freedom.
In 1976 Carbonell presented, at a formal ceremony on the South Lawn of the White House his “Bicentennial Eagle” as a gift to the United States of America. Durning the bicentennial celebrations the sculpture was on display in the Great Hall of Commerce in Washington D.C. The sculpture is now part of The Gerald R. Ford, Presidential Museum, Gran Rapids, Michigan, which is technically a branch office of The National Archives and Records Administration Collection, that the Federal government oversees.

Beaux Arts Gallery.

A new representation begun in 1987 as Beaux Arts Gallery, Miami Florida, became the exclusive world wide representative of Carbonell’s work, under the Director, Ricardo Gonzalez III. The years 1987-88 marked a very creative and productive period for Carbonell. Lovers, mothers and children, dancers and the female figure intensified as subject matters in his artistic vision. He redefined forms and contours, while maintaining the anatomical essence of the human figure, bringing female sensuality to a point of abstraction, while displaying a sense of aesthetic basic principles in a simplified form. A continuance of one-man shows and exhibits along with Art fairs nationally and internationally have since to date been part of this relationship.

Having won a competition in 1989 to create a statue of the Cuban Apostle Jose Marti for the San Carlos Institute in Key West, Florida. A subject very close to his heart: the artist struggled with the challenge of translating the human Marti into the idealized and heroic universal figure that Marti philosophically and spiritually represented. Conquering this challenge, in 1990 Carbonell moved to Pietrasanta, (Holy Stone) Italy to carve a 6-foot marble sculpture that portrays Marti with his left arm extended, as if to greet visitors, while the right hand rest on a bundle of wheat surrounded by the Cuban flag. The symbolism conveyed by the statue is that a cause, like one stalk of wheat, may become weak, but becomes strong when its supporters band together.

The Miami River Bridge.

This bridge on Brickell Avenue was the first time that the Florida Dept. of Transportation incorporated architecture, art and engineering in a bridge design. Carbonell again won a competition in 1992 and was selected to create one of his most impressive commissioned works of art, the 53-foot bronze monument “The Pillar of History” located at the Brickell Avenue Bridge, Miami Florida. Created in 1992 the monument reflects the history of the settlers of Miami, from the indigenous to its pioneers. The monument consists of a 36-foot high bronze bas-relief column that graphically narrates the lives of the Tequesta Indians, Miami’s first inhabitants and features 158 figures. At the top stands a 17-foot bronze sculpture, “Tequesta Family” portraying a Tequesta Indian warrior aiming an arrow to the sky with his wife and child at his side. In the niches at the supporting piers are four 4-foot by 8-foot bronze bas reliefs honoring the quintessential Miami pioneers Henry Flagler, Dana A. Dorsey, William and Mary Brickell, Marjory Stoneman Douglas and Julia Tuttle, depicting them in their historical perpetual settings. Twelve bronze bas-reliefs of Florida fauna are located at the base of the flagpole on the sides of the bridge.

This Historical Landmark serves as a lesson on the history of Miami.
“Little Miracles”, Certainly an invaluable opportunity, ” I was in love with the project, first because the Tequesta’s are a fascinating people, second, because it was such an important monument, with such tremendous dimensions. I am convinced that, previously, long ago, there were many civilizations more advanced than ours, who knew how to enjoy the beauty of the soul. While I was in Pietrasanta, Italy to commence this two-year project, in the middle of it, I suffered a stroke. My left side was paralyzed, and being left-handed I was desperate. I kept asking the medical staff, “listen, when can I once again begin to move my arms, I am a sculptor”, the reply “be patient” which I am not. On the one hand, I would tell myself, “look Carbonell, you are no longer a sculptor, you have been a sculptor for more than seventy years, but you are no longer a sculptor now. Your left hand is paralyzed. Nobody can change that. It’s absurd but on the other hand, since I couldn’t accept that, I would say, “yes, I can, I can change that”. The doctors released me from the hospital so I could emotionally feel better and come back in a couple of months to start my physical therapy. Ten days later, I told my assistants to get me my tools and bring them to the house because I wanted to start carving again. Shortly there after, my therapy nurse that came to my house spread the news I was insane. All my friends from the hospital arrived, they couldn’t believe that I was already working, ok, maybe not with my left hand, but I was surely working with my right hand. “My life is my work. And my work is my life.”

Other monuments to follow.

Between 1996 to 1999, Carbonell remained in Pietrasanta working on two commissions for monumental sculptures: “El Centinela Del Rio”, a 21-foot bronze sculpture depicting a Tequesta Indian blowing a conch shell carved out of alabaster, located at Tequesta Point in Brickell Key. Serving as a welcoming site to all, at the entrance of the mouth of the river and the city of Miami and very near to the “Miami Circle”. The other “The Manatee Fountain”, consisting of three Indian children playing with two manatees, located at the walkway between, Two and Three Tequesta Point condominiums on Brickell Key. In addition, sculptures are presented in all three buildings. Swire Properties and Manuel Carbonell have a unique patronage, not only is there “The Swire Art Trust”, there is the “Swire Carbonell Scholarship Fund” for the Florida International University Foundation.

His modern monumental works, created in his unique and distinctive personal style, are part of important art collections and public spaces, “Couple in Love” adorns the lobby of the Mandarin Oriental, Miami, “Lovers” is founded at the entrance of the Carbonell Condominium, named in the artist honor, “Torso” formally at Selby’s Five Point Park, downtown Sarasota is now at the von Liebig Art Center in Naples, Florida, and “New Generation” in Xujianhui Park, Shanghai, China. The sculpture of ” Amantes” now graces the grounds of the Hotel Bristol, Republic of Panama.

Later life.

Manuel Carbonell died at Kindred Hospital Coral Gables in Coral Gables, Florida, on November 10, 2011, at the age of 93. He was survived by his two sisters, Josefina Gonzalez and Angela Carbonell; niece, Clara Falcon; and nephews, Ricardo and Luis Gonzalez. His funeral mass was held at the chapel of Belen Jesuit Preparatory School in Miami.

Agencies/Various/Wiki/InternetPhotos/youtube/thecubanhistory.com
The Cuban History, Hollywood.
Arnoldo Varona, Editor.

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