Servando Cabrera Moreno: The Erotic Drawings

Some 32 years after his death, artist Servando Cabrera Moreno (1923-1981) continues to stir up controversy. Provocative, transgressive, Cabrera Moreno dared to portray the nude male body in postures too daring for the Cuba of 1960-1980, where homosexuality was more than frowned upon. It’s no secret that their sexual orientation prompted the ostracism and exclusion of many Cuban artists, and Servando was no exception.

"In the late 1960s, as a step towards his erotic phase, which was the climax of his artistic development, Cabrera Moreno made works in which the representations were intended to parallel the plant and animal worlds. In the decade of the 1970s—which in his case lasted for more than 10 years, culminating in his death in 1981—Servando preferred to sensually represent the human body,” says Rosemary Rodríguez, curator of the exhibition Epifanía del cuerpo (Epiphany of the Body), presented at the museum as part of the celebration of his 90th anniversary.

According to the exhibition catalogue, the show "is a way to recognize the diverse production of an artist who has transcended his own time." Cabrera Moreno was a great drawing teacher, “of excellent transparency, an artist of sensuality." Several rooms in the museum offer a glimpse into his ways of approaching erotic and homoerotic themes.

(Rosemary Rodríguez, deputy director of the Servando Cabrera Moreno Museum and Library, talks to Maya Quiroga about Epifanía del cuerpo / Epiphany of the Body, a show of more than 30 of the artist’s erotic drawings—most of them previously unknown.  From Cuban Art News.  To read more, click here).

Servando Cabrera Moreno was born in Havana Cuba (1923-1981). He graduated from the National School of Fine Arts "San Alejandro" in 1942 and developed a prolific artistic career with over fifty outstanding personal exhibitions and over two hundred group exhibits. His works were shown in La Biennale di Venezia, Sao Paulo and Mexico. In 1969 he receives First Prize at the VIII International Joan Miro Drawing Contest, Barcelona, Spain. Servando Cabrera used thousands of different technic and themes with original masters ease. During the most significant moments of his creations, referred to as epic, the expressionism and erotisisim, always plays with themes where the human body is the protagonist... More, here.