Wifredo Arcay  

Acclaimed by Jean Arp as “the perfection of Cuba’s Cubists,” Wifredo Arcay emerged among the postwar generation of the Ecole de Paris as a painter, muralist and, perhaps most familiarly, as a printmaker. Born in Cuba and trained at Havana’s Academia de San Alejandro, Arcay arrived in Paris on a grant in 1949.  He assimilated quickly within the milieu of post cubist abstraction, studying at the Grande Chaumière, and with Edgard Pillet and Jean Dewasne at their Atelier d’Art Abstrait.  In 1951, at the invitation of André Bloc, the influential editor of the journal Art d’Aujourd’hui, Arcay set up a studio at Bloc’s villa in Meudon, mingling there amongst such luminaries of the historical avant-garde as Jean Arp, Robert and Sonia Delaunay, and Fernand Léger. He became founder and one of the most influential members of the Cuban Concrete "Group of 10" in Havana

 

He later went to exhibit at Galleries Colette Allendie and Denise Rene, as well as representing Cuba at the Sao Paulo and Paris Biennials (57-59-63). His estate is now represented by The Mayor Gallery in London.