Raquel Lázaro and Jesús M. Casagrán Papers

Raquel Lázaro was an artist born in Havana, Cuba on November 10, 1917. She received her formal education from the Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes "San Alejandro" in Havana. The school was known for being repressive and archaic in the methodology of art taught there. Lázaro was one of its rebellious students and she developed her own unique form of painting despite the reportedly hostile environment at San Alejandro. Her works invoke the style of Paul Klee and Marc Chagall in the application of color and other aesthetic properties. Her work was featured as part of exhibitions in Havana starting in 1956. She later fled Cuba shortly after the Revolution and moved to Miami, Florida where she continued working as an artist and participated in group exhibitions in South Florida. In 1978, her work was featured in a collective show at the Museum of Modern Art of Latin America in Washington, D.C. She refused to have her work displayed in any museums in Cuba. She died on May 13, 2020.

Jesús M. Casagrán was a Cuban sculptor. He was also the director of culture within the Ministry of Education during the years of Ramón Grau San Martín of the Auténtico Party where the production of art and culture flourished with support from the state.