Identity elements
Name and location of repository
Level of description
Collection
Title
Carlos M. Luis Papers
Date(s)
- 1986-1989 (Creation)
Extent
6 Boxes
Name of creator
Biographical history
Carlos M. Luis (1932-2013) was Cuban-born writer, art critic, and curator active in the Cuban art scene both on the island and in exile.
During the 1940s and 1950s, Luis was a notable figure of the Cuban art world, collaborating with contemporaries such as Jorge Camacho. His later works in exile are characterized by abstract paintings, often incorporating text into his pieces.
He left Cuba in 1962 and settled in New York where he worked at the publishing house Doubleday and founded Exilio magazine with Cuban artists and writers Julián Orbón, Alfredo Lozano, Jesse Fernández, and Eugenio Florit. Luis moved to Miami in 1974, founding the Cuban Museum of Arts and Culture and serving as its director until the museum’s closure in 1999.
Luis authored a book on Cuban culture and art, El oficio de la mirada (Ediciones Universal, 1998), and wrote extensively on surrealism. As an artist and visual poet he exhibited his work in a number of galleries around the country and world. He has taught courses and given lectures on a variety of subjects including renaissance, Cuban and contemporary art, cultural studies, socialism, avant-garde, surrealism, and philosophy.
Content and structure elements
Scope and content
The Carlos M. Luis papers contain the personal papers of Carlos M. Luis (1932-2013), a Cuban artist and director of the Cuban Museum of Arts and Culture in Miami.
The collection includes correspondence and clippings related to Luis' art and his leadership of the Museum. It also contains meeting minutes of the Cuban Museum board of directors, exhibit lists, and documents related to special events.
System of arrangement
Conditions of access and use elements
Conditions governing access
This collection is open for research.
Physical access
Technical access
Conditions governing reproduction
Requests to publish or display materials from this collection require written permission from the rights owner. Please, contact chc@miami.edu for more information.
Preferred citation: Carlos M. Luis Papers, Cuban Heritage Collection, University of Miami Libraries, Coral Gables, Florida.
Languages of the material
- English
- Spanish
Scripts of the material
Language and script notes
Finding aids
Generated finding aid
Acquisition and appraisal elements
Custodial history
Immediate source of acquisition
Gift of Marta Martínez, January and June 2014.
Appraisal, destruction and scheduling information
Accruals
Related materials elements
Existence and location of originals
Existence and location of copies
Related archival materials
Cuban Museum of Arts and Culture Records
Information about related materials is available at http://proust.library.miami.edu/findingaids/index.php?p=collections/findingaid&id=404
Related descriptions
Notes element
General note
Other Information:
Rights Statement: The text of this webpage is available for modification and reuse under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License and the GNU Free Documentation License (unversioned, with no invariant sections, front-cover texts, or back-cover texts).
Specialized notes
Alternative identifier(s)
Description control element
Rules or conventions
Sources used
Archivist's note
Collection-level record added by Fernando Espino, March 2014. Revised by Natalie Baur, March 2014. Biographical Note updated by Amanda Moreno, April 2014. Updated by Rebeca Gonzalez, May 2021.