Mario Santi Collection

Mario Santí was a Cuban sculptor born in Holguín province in 1911. He later moved to Havana and entered the San Alejandro Academy of Fine Arts where he graduated from Drawing and Painting and Drawing and Modelling in 1934. In 1935, when the Provincial Visual Arts School of Oriente was founded, he was appointed teacher of the Modelling Department of that school, where he taught for nine years. In 1943, through a process of competitive examinations, he became part of the faculty of the San Alejandro School. He exhibited his works in thirty national and foreign collective expositions and held three personal ones. His artistic triumphs include: First Prize, National Competition for executing a bust to poet José María Heredia in the city of Santiago de Cuba in 1939; First Prize in the National Competition to make a Monument to Mothers in the city of Cárdenas, 1945; First Prize for the Construction of a tomb worthy of José Martí, in the Santiago de Cuba cemetery, 1945; Second Prize in the Third National Exposition of the Ministry of Education of 1946 and First Prize in the Competition to build a Monument to Mothers in the city of Holguín.