Beatriz, Dulce

Person

Beatriz, Dulce

1931-2021

Dulce Beatriz (née Dulce Hernández Moreno de Ayala) is a painter and sculptor mainly known for her Impressionist-style painting. She was born in Havana, Cuba on March 17, 1931 to José María Hernández, the manager of a bakery, and Dulce Moreno Ayala, a teacher. Her maternal grandfather, Dr. Emilio Moreno de Ayala, was a well-published historian and university professor in Spain who was a recipient of the Orden de Isabel la Católica, which his granddaughter would also receive decades later.

Beatriz originally sought a career in music education, graduating from the teacher’s college in Havana Escuela de Maestros de Kindergarten in 1949 and completed further studies in piano, solfeggio, music theory, harmony, composition, orchestration, history of music, music education and orchestra conducting at the Carlos Alfredo Peyrellade Conservatory of music and graduated in 1953. She exhibited in 1954 at the National Exhibition and the Biennial International Exhibition in Havana, which she would go on to judge starting in 1956. She graduated from the Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes "San Alejandro" in Havana in 1955 and received a prestigious grant called the Bolsa de Viaje (Scholarship for Study Abroad) to study outside of Cuba. She traveled to Spain to take classes at the Prado Museum. She also became an advisor and professor at the Fine Arts of the Havana City Hall. She taught classes in anatomical drawing, coloring, art history and art appreciation. She had her first solo exhibition at the Havana City Hall's Hall of Mirrors in 1959, for which she won the Noble Havana Gold Medal. In that same year she had another solo exhibition at The Spanish Casino.

She and her husband, Leonardo Beatriz, a musician with a specialty in Spanish Regional music and an art restorer and appraiser who patented a canvas stretching method, moved to the U.S. on February 8, 1960 to live in Florida where Beatriz continued her career as an artist. Throughout the 1970’s and ‘80’s, her art was displayed in galleries and she received awards and recognition for her work. and traveled frequently abroad. In October of 1963 she exhibited her work at the "Loft on the Mile" Gallery of Art, Coral Gables, Florida. In Managua, Nicaragua at the Rubén Darío National Theatre she exhibited a collection of her works in 1971. Additionally in 1971, she was the recipient of a Lincoln-Marti Award. In 1972, a collection of Beatriz’s works was displayed in “Gallerie Jean Tiroche” in Palm Beach, Florida. Jean Tiroche had always displayed Impressionist and post-Impressionist artists from the Paris School but reportedly made an exception for Beatriz, who was from the Spanish School. In 1975 she became an honorary Member of The Hispanic International Research Institute of the city of New York. In 1982, she received the Orden de Isabel la Católica. The Director of the San Fernando Royal Academy of Fine Arts Dr. Juan Contreras y López de Ayala the Marquis of Lozoya provided the recommendation that Beatriz be recipient of the award. In 1983, she was awarded the key of the City of Miami, and in 1997 she made a guest appearance in the T.V. documentary" Camino al Exito." She has been interviewed many times and she has been recognized and her work discussed in many magazines and other publications such as Marqui’s "Who's Who in the World," 1989-1990 and the book Raíces de Cubania by Dr. Ariel Remos .

During her career, Beatriz traveled extensively to paint at a variety of sites, including archaeological digs in Mexico, Italy, Portugal and Egypt as well as travels to Spain, Belgium, France, Austria, the West Coast of the State of Florida, and Venice. Art critic Jesús Hernández of Diario de las Americas notes that the works “reflect a strong presence in one of the main concepts of the Baroque, Romanticism and even Expressionism, mainly from Spanish streams.”

Her works are parts of permanent museum collections in Madrid, Spain at the Museo Español Reina Sofía and the Instituto de Cultura Hispánica, as well as in fine art museums in major cities in Venezuela, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Panama, Chile, and Mexico as well as in the U.S. at Memorial Art Gallery in Rochester, New York and the Dayton Art Institute in Ohio. She also has produced two publications, A Quarter Century of My Life, which is an autobiography published by Dukane Press in 1972, and Dulce Beatriz: Oil paintings, drawings, silver point, sculptures, engravings, which is a collection of work edited by the Beatrizs with a foreword by Charles K. Szabo, published in 2009. In June 2007, she was interviewed by Rossi M., A, and Maurizio, G., for “La Isla Times” of Key Biscayne, Florida.

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Biographical note written by Kate Villa, 2020-2021 UGrow Fellow for Manuscripts and Archives Management.

1. Dulce Beatriz

2. Dulce Beatriz - Wikipedia

3. Biography Painter Dulce Beatriz - La Galeria Cuban Fine Art Gallery (lagaleriafineart.com)

4. Dulce Beatriz | Artnet

5. Dulce Beatriz Bio - Diva Art Group (divart.com)