Naif Art of the late Isabel Guerra de las Mercedes Rodriguez (Camagüey 1922-2002) now at The Box Gallery

Selected works by the late 

Isabel Guerra de las Mercedes Rodriguez 

The Box Gallery

811b- Belvedere Road 

West Palm Beach, Florida 33405

Isabel Guerra de las Mercedes Rodriguez (Camagüey 1922-2002) was a pioneer of Naif Art in Camagüey land, with a self-taught when he took his first steps was about 62 years, reflecting principeñas scenes with great imagination.

The term Naïf Art was used for the first time at the turn of the 19th century, to describe the painting of Henri Rousseau, a self-taught painter admired by the artistic “avant-garde” of the time, which included geniuses such as Picasso, Matisse and Paul Gauguin, among others.

With this origin, Naïf Art began to state itself as a current which approaches artistic contexts in a spontaneous way, with total aesthetic and expressive freedom, and its followers define it today as “the art that is free of conventions”.

Some critics claim that, contrasting with the “academics” who paint with their “brain”, the “naïve” paint only with their“soul”. This seems to be the true essence of Naïf Art, clearly the style of those who were born with the gift of being artists…

In the many pieces that today constitute the heritage of the local culture, the local environment was reflected, with humor and irony own a sexagenarian who had broken taboos and

Isabel de las Mercedes worked hard during those last years of its existence, knowing that time was running out and would not stop doing what was the biggest “discovery of a lifetime”

That thin woman with deep look, who always earned the respect of all, he left as he had come into the world wrapped in simplicity and humility and a certain breath of eternal youth.

Numerous awards and recognitions filled his curriculum vitae with personal and group exhibitions of her paintings in Cuba, Belgrade, Yugoslavia Montenegro, Ulam Bato, Mongolia exhibitions; Toledo to Madrid, Spain and the Metropolitan Book Center, New York.