Antonio R. Alvarez
Antonio Alvarez (born 1941)
Antonio (Tony) Alvarez a Cuban American artist and conservator of works of art on paper (born Sagua la Grande, Cuba, 1941)
| ANTONIO ALVAREZ | |
|---|---|
| Born | Sagua la Grande, Cuba, June 13, 1941 |
| Education | Hunter College, BA
City University of New York, PhD candidate |
| Occupation | Conservator of Works of Art on Paper |
| websites | www.NinoSantaEulalia.com |
| Spouse | Betty Krulik, married, 1990 |
| Children | Hugo Julian Alvarez, born 1993 |
Early Life
Antonio Alvarez was born in Sagua la Grande, Cuba, in 1941, https://saguaedificios.tripod.com/colonia_espanola.html, to his mother Dolores (Lola) Martin Alvarez and father Jose Alvarez (who died in 1944 due to peritonitis, a complication of kidney stones). He has a brother, Jose R. Alvarez, older by 3 years. They lived in Central Ramona, Cuba (after the untimely death of his father) with the large maternal and paternal families of over 20 aunts and uncles. Moving the family in the early 1950s to Havana, and residing at Jesus Maria No. 58, Apt. C, in the Jewish Quarter, so that Jose and Antonio had access to educational opportunities. Antonio attended school and worked in an accounting firm beginning at age 13 to assist the family. Antonio's brother, Jose, became an engineering student at Villanova, campus in Havana. When the University offered their engineering seniors an opportunity to finish the degree in Pennsylvania, in 1961 he married Maria Ana Yañez and moved to Pennsylvania. Not long thereafter, Antonio, with his mother, applied to leave Havana to join the growing family in the United States.[1]
His art education began at Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes "San Alejandro" Havana, taking courses at Havana Public Library in Stage Design, with Czech National Theatre designer Vicholyl.
Enrique Nicanor remembers Havana in the post-revolution years:
When the Revolution happened (I was 14 years old) I started by drawing in several newspapers and got an offer from the new government to be director of animation cartoons at the official (and only one) state owned Cinema institution (ICAIC, Institute of Cuban Arts and Cinematography Industry). I didn’t have a clue about writing and we had to create films and stories, Antonio was around in the circle of friends dealing with painting and writing. His close friends and mine were Juan Tapia Ruano, Antonia Eiriz, Raul Martinez, basically, but Tony was at the time I met him dealing with writing theater pieces. He wrote and managed to set it on the stage; one of his pieces, “La Compota,” was quite a success in Havana. The songs he composed for that piece were the songs we used to sing when we got together or traveled through the country on the weekends. So he appeared to me more as a writer than a painter, and I admired his talent for writing, so he became one of the ICAIC - Cinema Animation Department group of collaborators.[2]
Film maker and writer, Fernando Villaverde, recalled the artistic milieu in Havana at the time:
He either worked with or was friends with at ICAIC. Jorge Carruana, José Antonio Jorge, Raúl Molina, Sergio Giral, Oscar Valdés, Oswaldo Pastror, Héctor Veitía. I can also list friends from those of us who were opera aficionados or sang in choruses: Gonzalo Alfonso, Jorge Sierra, Gustavo Halley, Carlos Sobrino.[3]
Alvarez, as a writer, was published early in his career; his Noneto, published with Ediciones El Puente, the independent publishers. They gathered a large group of young aspiring writers, Manuel Ballagas and José Manuel Fernández, as well as El Puente owner José Mario Rodríguez, publishing many artists for the first time. They were closed by 1966 due to unceasing harassments for tolerance of homosexuality and other liberal ideologies. His other publications include: Bohemia Magazine, Short Stories, ca. 1962; Arlequin Theatre, Havana, Produced Plays, 1962-1965; Children’s Theatre of Havana, Produced Plays, 1962-1965
Madrid
Alvarez and his mother left Cuba for the United States by way of Madrid in 1965, where they stayed with relatives at Colegiata No. 5 for 6 months while awaiting immigration to the United States. He quickly connected with Cuban artists.
Nicanor recalled:
In 1965, he and I left Cuba to meet in Madrid, several months later, where we spent our discovery of Spain together with Juan Tapia-Ruano, our friend and master painter, no work but lots of fun and deep exploration of the arts in Spain, visiting museums, meeting the relevant Spanish painters thanks to Juan Tapia-Ruano's acquaintances. We explored the main cities as Toledo, Segovia, Cuenca, etc., with their art and architectural jewels. Fernando Villaverde, his wife Miñuca, and their 3-4 years old daughter Viridiana, joined the group when they suddenly arrived in Madrid from Cuba. Fernando was surely one of the most talented cinema directors from Cuba.[2]
Wilmington and New York
Immigrating through New York, he spent his first months in Wilmington, Delaware, where his brother had settled as a chemical engineer at DuPont. Here, too, he became part of the artistic community, exhibiting at the Delaware Art Museum Invitational, 54th Salon, in 1966, for which he achieved some notoriety in the local press. He became a United States Citizen in August of 1973[4]
Professional Career
He was recruited in 1966 to work at Lowy Frame and Restoring Company, when the 1966 flood of the Arno had many seasoned conservators going to Italy to assist in the restoration. It created an opportunity for Alvarez to work at the famed Lowy Frame and Restoring Company, where he learned the restoration of paintings and eventually developed expertise in the restoration of works of art on paper. Over the course of almost 20 years at Lowy, he worked on masterpieces of American and European art. While working full time, he pursued his bachelor’s degree in Spanish Literature at Hunter College, and went on to do coursework at the Graduate Center, City University of New York, PhD candidate, Spanish Literature 1975-1977.
Antonio Alvarez and Scott Krawitz established Alvarez Conservation Services in 1984 after meeting and working closely at Lowy Frame and Restoring Company. They have maintained close ties with the Shar family of Lowy. Since then, Alvarez developed and refined a state-of-the-art studio and team of specialists dedicated exclusively to handling paper conservation projects. Although Alvarez has remained a small, personal, and service-oriented company, it has built a prodigious reputation as the paper conservation studio for complicated paper conservation projects.Https://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/12/arts/design/hurricane-sandys-aftermath-reshapes-art-insurance-policies.html Archived 2013-07-11 at the Wayback Machine As of March 2020, after over 50 years as a practicing conservator, Antonio has stepped into the role of conservator emeritus. He continues to offer consultations on special evaluations and projects. [5]
Artistic Career
While Alvarez built his conservation business, his interest and connection to artists and art criticism was maintained through Scott Alan Gallery owned by Krawitz and Alvarez. It was dedicated to showing Latin American Contemporary Artists; Alvarez and Krawitz selected the artists, and Alvarez wrote catalogue introductions and the premises of their exhibitions. Amongst the artists they showed were: Ronald Gonzalez, Ricardo Mazal, Raphael Leonardo Setien, and RISD professor the late Alfred DeCredico.
Early in the 2010s Alvarez began to paint in earnest. He had immediate success, with exhibitions through studio tours with Riverarts (an Arts Organization in the Rivertowns of Westchester County). Alvarez uses proceeds from the sale of his work to support organizations that are meaningful to him: ACLU, Planned Parenthood, and others. In 2019 he donated over 20 works to the Lifting Up Westchester Men's Shelter, [6]
Blue Door Gallery, Juried Show, December 19, 2012 (Two paintings exhibited)
Irvington Public Library, Martucci Gallery, Short Stories: New Paintings, July 11–August 30, 2013, Irvington, NY (Reviewed: Rivertowns Enterprise, July 19, 2013)
BCB Art Gallery, 115 Warren Street, Hudson, NY, Gallery artist, Scheherazade, September 2017
Donald Gallery, South Presbyterian Church, Dobbs Ferry, NY, April 2017
RiverArts Studio Tours, April 2012, April 2013, April 2014, April 2015, April 2016
Upstream Gallery, Hastings on Hudson, NY, Black and White, March 2018
Upstream Gallery, Hastings on Hudson, NY, Antonio Alvarez, May 2018
Blue Door Gallery, Yonkers, NY, Group Show, Black History Month, Suite Yoruba, 4 Paintings exhibited February 2019
Upstream Gallery, Hastings on Hudson, NY, Antonio Alvarez: Landscapes, March–April 2019
Woodstock Artists Association, Woodstock NY, Radius 50, Juried Show, September 2019
Upstream Gallery, Hastings on Hudson, NY, Antonio Alvarez: Toys in the Attic, October–November 2020
Woodstock Artists Association, Woodstock NY, ”Renewal” Banner, juror Lena Petersen, September 2020–January 2021
He continues to produce paintings, many with literary themes, from his studio in Pine Bush, NY, which he calls Blue Ferret Atelier.
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- ↑ email correspondence with Jose Alvarez, Apr 27, 2021 3:54 PM
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Email correspondence Apr 27, 2021 1:48 PM
- ↑ email correspondence Apr 28, 2021 12:24 PM
- ↑ Naturalization Papers, August 8, 1973
- ↑ "Alvarez Conservation Services | Paper Conservation". Alvarez Conservation Services. Retrieved 2021-05-29.
- ↑ https://www.liftingupwestchester.org/news/irvington-artist-donates-collection-of-his-work-to-decorate-luw-mens-shelter
