This is not going to be an academic discussion of Cuban poster art and its significance and contributions to art, cinema, and geopolitics. ‘mkay? I just want to share some posters that I really love, and I’ll try to give some background.

The bulk of Cuban posters are Cuban cinema posters produced by the Cuban Film Institute ICAIC (Instituto Cubano de Arte e Industria Cinematográfico), and political posters by OSPAAAL (Organization of Solidarity of the People of Asia, Africa & Latin America). We visited ICAIC’s museum in Havana, where they’d plastered all the walls and the ceiling with posters. I have a picture, but can’t share it, unfortunately, because the laptop I usually work on died the day Rolando left for Cuba, and I can’t access my pics at the moment.

“The laptop died the day Rolando left for Cuba” sounds like a country song.

Anyway, to name a few (certainly not all), some of the most famous of the Cuban graphic artists are Eduardo Muñoz Bachs, Alfredo Rostgaard, Antonio Reboiro, René Portocarrero, René Mederos, Raúl Martinez, and René Azcuy.

I’m going to start wth Bachs.

The prolific artist Eduardo Muñoz Bachs, who died in 2001, created many memorable posters – in all, he designed more than 2,000. Manuela (1965) is a really interesting movie about a woman who joins the guerrilla fighters in the Sierra Maestra mountains; it’s directed by the same person, Humberto Solas, as the famous movie Lucía (1968), which explores the lives of three women (all named Lucía) at various points in Cuban history.

Note the signature Cuban guayabera (shirt) and cigar in the poster for Vampiros en la Habana (1985), which is kind of a goofy animated film about a scientist who invents a potion allowing vampires to be able to live while the sun is out.

Cines Moviles is a documentary about taking film projectors and films into poor, rural Cuban communities and letting people see movies for the first time and watching their reactions. I have seen it, but don’t remember it well, except that the people were, perhaps not surprisingly, absolutely enchanted by the “moving pictures” they were seeing. I have not seen Sucedió la Ciénega (It Happened in the Swamp) – I’ve just always loved the poster for it.

These next two are by Raúl Martinez (1969 and 1968 respectively), and I am really drawn to their color/style. The “swashbuckling” Camilo Cienfuegos was a popular revolutionary and close friend of Che Guevara; he died in a plane crash in 1959. Rolando’s grandmother believed – as did many Cubans – that Fidel and/or his brother Raúl had him murdered because he was so popular. Historians tend to believe there was no foul play involved.

You know who the Fidel is in the poster on the right. The “26″ refers to the failed July 26, 1953 attacks on the Moncada Barracks (army facility) in Cuba, which is considered the official beginning of the Cuban Revolution. Both Fidel and Raúl were captured and put in jail after the attack, but in 1955, President Batista, under broad political pressure, granted clemency to all political prisoners. The Castro brothers subsequently went to Mexico (where they met Che Guevara and Camilo Cienfuegos) to plan their revolution, and they returned to Cuba in the yacht, Granma, in December of 1956 to put their plans in motion.

Alfredo Rostgaard made many posters for both ICAIC and OSPAAAL. He was also the art director for OSPAAAL. He died in 2004. The Hasta La Victoria Siempre (1968) Che poster on the left translates as “Forever, until victory” and it was the sign off Che used in his last letter to Fidel before heading to Bolivia where he was eventually captured and killed. This Santiago Alvarez documentary from 1967 (see an interesting write up about the film here) about the circumstances that led to Che’s death was made in just 48 hours, upon the personal request of Fidel and right after news of Che’s death was announced.

The poster on the right, Christo Guerrillero, (1969) is an OSPAAAL poster, unusual for its religious iconography. The poster is a tribute to Camilo Torres, a famous Catholic priest in Colombia, who, believing passionately in justice for the poor and oppressed, left the priesthood to join the National Liberation Army (ELN) in Colombia; he died in battle very shortly after joining the guerrillas. He famously said,  “If Christ were alive today, he would be a guerrillero.”

Cancion Protesta (1967), made for the Casa de las Americas for a music festival, is also by Rostgaard; it’s part of the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Soy Cuba (1964) was a joint film production between Cuba and the Soviet Union, and it’s a really interesting movie that consists of 4 shorts about the suffering of Cuban people under Batista. To be sure, it’s pure propaganda, but the cinematography is gorgeous. We saw it at a Cuban film festival in New York, but I am pretty sure you can rent it. The amazing poster is by René Portocarrero.

And the very colorful and symmetrical work of Antonio Reboiro. These are both movie posters. Julieta de los Espiritus (1967) – a Fellini movie – and Cecilia (1984), another movie by Humberto Solas (Manuela and Lucía), this one about a clever woman, Cecilia, who uses Santería to seduce the son of a rich colonialist family.

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This is, by no means, an exhaustive look at Cuban poster art. I barely touched on the OSPAAAL posters, which feature very politically powerful (and often controversial) images and subjects.

Finding good (and large) images of Cuban posters is not easy, though OSPAAAL has a pretty good archive here (click on the Cuban Movie Posters link for the biggest selection of images). Some of my very favorites – the “social” posters, which are propaganda posters that encourage cooperative behavior, like conserving energy and water, and helping with the sugar cane harvest – are nearly impossible to find, except in Lincoln Cushing’s excellent book Revolucion! He does have thumbnails of lots of posters here and here, but you can’t click on them for larger images. These are some of the social posters, in thumbnail size. From left to right:

I Am Going to Study to Be a Teacher (1971)
Working for 10 Million (the Motorized Health Brigade) (1970)
Don’t Waste It (1983)
Cut Until the Last Cane (1971)
International Women’s Day (1972)
Pull Together With Efficiency and Quality (1975)

I’m not an expert in the Cuban Revolution – I’ve read a bit here and there. If you’re interested in learning more, I think Jon Lee Anderson’s book Che: A Revolutionary Life is a must read. The book (and it’s a big one) is, of course, mostly about Che, but it provides an excellent accounting of the Revolution and how Che, an Argentinian, ended up as one of its leaders (as well as how he was too restless to remain in Cuba after overthrowing the Batista government). I also read a memoir by Carlos Eire called Waiting for Snow in Havana: Confessions of Cuban Boy because my father-in-law recommended it as a book that reflected his own experience as a boy in Cuba, who left shortly after the Revolution.

Whew. This was a long post, but a labor of love.

I hope you liked seeing the posters as much as I enjoyed posting them for you.