Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Giulio V. Blanc Sotheby`s Latin American Departmente


Programa 10 Out of Cuba
cortesia de F Espasande

INTAR GALLERY
Consejero de Inverna Lockpez
Biographical Information
http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/searchimages/images.cfm/filter_type/Collection/filter_key/5414
Independent curator, critic, art historian and consultant Giulio V. Blanc (1955-1995) specialized in Cuban and Latin American art history and in his lifetime collected a wealth of material on the subject. Through his numerous exhibitions and keen articles appearing in national and international art journals, Blanc became a leading authority on Latin American art and successfully established himself as a link between Cuban and Cuban-American artists and US galleries and museums. The Miami Generation (1983) and Amelia Peláez: A Retrospective (1988) are two significant exhibitions Blanc curated for Miami's Cuban Museum of Arts and Culture in addition to the celebrated Wifredo Lam and His Contemporaries, 1938-1952 (1992) for New York's Studio Museum in Harlem. Giulio V. Blanc was among the key figures that catapulted Latin American art onto the mainstream in the early 1980s.
Giulio V. Blanc was born in Havana in 1955 to Baron Lodovico Blanc and María V. Blanc. The Blanc name hails from Italy and the title of Baron was awarded to Alberto Blanc, Lodovico Blanc's grandfather, while he was Secretary of State in 1873 under Victor Emmanuel II of Italy. As young advocates of Cuban culture, the Blanc's collected a number of paintings by Cuban artists but were forced to leave behind the works of Cuban masters such as Carlos Enríquez, Victor Manuel, René Portocarrero, Fidelio Ponce and others to facilitate an uncomplicated exodus from the country during the revolution. Lodovico and María were in their thirties and Giulio was five years old when the family settled in Miami.

Giulio Blanc completed his undergraduate education at Harvard and proceeded to Brown University and the Institute of Fine Arts in New York for graduate work (1979-1980). During his career, he served as an independent curator and consultant to The Cuban Museum of Arts and Culture (Miami), The Metropolitan Museum (Miami), and The Museum of Contemporary Hispanic Art (New York) among others. He also lectured on Latin American art history at the Art Museum of the Americas, OAS (Organization of American States), Washington, DC, The University of Miami, and El Museo Nacional de Arte in La Paz, Bolivia. In addition, he worked as a consultant in the Latin American Paintings Department at Sotheby's auction house in New York and served on the editorial board of the magazine Art Nexus. Blanc was pursuing a doctoral degree in art history at the City University of New York before his premature death in 1995 at the age of thirty-nine.

Date
Event
1955
Born November 1 in Havana, Cuba to Baron Lodovico and Baroness María V. Blanc, young collectors of Cuban art. The title of Baron was awarded to Alberto Blanc, Lodovico Blanc's grandfather, in 1873 while Alberto was Secretary of State under Victor Emmanuel II of Italy.
1960
The Blanc family migrates to the United States because of the escalating revolution. Lodovico and Maria V. Blanc are in their thirties when they flee the island. The works of Cuban painters such as Carlos Enríquez, Victor Manuel, René Portocarrero, Fidelio Ponce and others were left behind to facilitate an uncomplicated exodus.
1976
Giulio V. Blanc serves as research assistant for one year at the Tozzer Library, Peabody Museum, Harvard University.
1977
Graduates cum laude from Harvard College with a B.A. in Archeology.
1979
Graduates from Brown University with a M.A. in Archeology. Was a research assistant until 1980 at the Gallery of the Center for Inter-American Relations, New York city.
1980
Receives a certificate in Museum Studies from the Graduate School of Arts and Science, New York University. Curates Emilio Sánchez: Lithographs which opens at the Pagoda, Ransom-Everglades School, Coconut Grove, Florida. Co-curates Cuba in the Nineteenth Century for Miami's Miami-Dade Public Library.
1981
Joins the Latin American Paintings Department, Sotheby's Auction House, New York and serves for two years.
1982
Co-curates Young Hispanics, USA which opens at the Lehigh University Museum, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and curates Ten Out of Cuba for INTAR Latin American Gallery in New York.
1983
Curates Cuban Fantasies at the Kouros Gallery in New York and Pablo Cano en Paris for the 4 Place de Saussaies in Paris, France. Also curates The Miami Generation: Nine Cuban-American Artists for the Cuban Museum of Arts and Culture in Miami and the Meridian House in Washington, DC.
1984
Serves as independent curator and consultant to Miami's Metropolitan Museum and Art Center and The Cuban Museum of Arts and Culture; The Museum of Contemporary Hispanic Art in New York and other institutions. Lectures at the Art Museum of the Americas (Organization of American States) in Washington, DC; The University of Miami; The Cuban Museum of Arts and Culture (Miami); The Center for the Fine Arts (Miami); Rockland Center for the Arts (West Nyack, NY); and the National Museum of Art, La Paz, Bolivia. Curates Young Collector's of Latin American Art which opened at Miami's Metropolitan Museum and Art Center.
1985
Curates Dancing Faces: An Exhibition of Mexican Masks for the Metropolitan Museum and Art Center in Miami and Nuevas Vistas: Latin American Paintings which opens at the Wistariahurst, Holyoke, Massachusetts. Curates Architecture in Cuban Painting, for the Miami Dade Public Library.
1986
Receives and M.A. in Art History at New York University's Institute of Fine Arts. Curates Carlos Enríquez for the Cuban Museum of Arts and Culture, Miami, Florida and Into the Mainstream: Ten Latin American Artists Working in New York for the Jersey City Museum in Jersey City, New Jersey.
1987
The exhibition Aurelia Muñoz: Selections, curated by Blanc, opens at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in Miami, Florida. Serves as juror for Expresiones Hispanas: Coors National Hispanic Art Exhibition, Denver, Colorado. Curates Visions of Self: The American Latin Artist for the Miami-Dade Community College gallery.
1988
Receives a grant from the NY State Council on the Arts for research on Cuban artist Wifredo Lam for the exhibition at the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York. Enrolls in the art history Ph.D. program at the City University Graduate Center, New York city. First bombing of the Cuban Museum of Arts and Culture in Miami takes place. Blanc's Amelia Peláez: A Retrospective successfully opens at the Cuban Museum of Arts and Culture despite much controversy.
1989
Curates Urgent Dream: New Work by Mario Bencomo at the Museum of Contemporary Hispanic Art (MoCHA), New York. Second bombing of the Cuban Museum of Arts and Culture, Miami FL.
1990
New York correspondent for Arte en Colombia, Bogota. Serves as adjunct lecturer at Queens College (CUNY) for the Fall semester. Curates the exhibition, The Post-Miami Generation for the Inter-American Gallery in Miami, Florida. Co-curates Figurative Perspectives: Six Artists of Latin American Background for the Rockland Center for the Arts, West Nyack, NY.
1991
Visiting scholar at University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Writes a small play, Tía Carmela: A Cuban Tragicomedy, illustrated by Cuban artist and friend Pablo Cano.
1995
Dies at the age of forty of AIDS related complications.


http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/searchimages/images.cfm/filter_type/Collection/filter_key/5414

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Giulio was a friend of mine. He was very generous to invite painters,writers and others to soirees at his apt in manhattan and to the preview parties at Sotheby's when he worked there. We welcomed the Mariel generation to NY, such good times and such sad times too when many started to disappear including him.

I used to host piano parties myself, he wanted me to write about music in Noticias de Arte but I had an excuse with starting my own business.

I wonder how I can get a copy of is play Tia Carmela.

rafael rodriguez

Conchita Bouza said...

Sr. Rafael Rodriguez Pan
Es una pena pero no pude conocer a Giulio V. Blanc
lo poco que he sabido de el es fascinante. Imagino que fue una persona fuera de serie. Ojala algun dia alguien escriba algo sobre el. Lo unico que he podido hacer es esto.

Conchita Bouza said...

Scot Davidson
Bello !!

The Curious Connoisseur said...

I knew Giulio very well indeed! Our families had long been acquainted since before 1959 in Cuba. But he and I got to actually meet and, from there became very fast friends, in the summer of 1976 at a common friend's birthday party on Key Biscayne. I remember all his landmark achievements and lovely events at his family home where his parents received most elegantly and hospitably. But above all, I still recall just about every day, Giulio's sure footed command of knowledge in various cultural areas, his fluent command of French in addition to Spanish and English, and his scathing razor sharp insights and wit about people and situations in the historical past and around us in the present. He was a true gentleman and a scholar. He was also completely socially and professionally unpretentious and genuine. As his mother would often say when she liked someone, "The real thing"!