Jorge Camacho

La Habana (Cuba), 1934 – Paris (France), 2011

Born in La Habana in 1934, the painter Jorge Camacho began studying law in 1950. He was introduced to Surrealism through the poetry of Breton and Éluard, and later through the abstractions of Klee and Miró. Two years later, he began to paint himself. His works immediately convey his love of travel. His first journey, to Mexico, introduced him to pre-Columbian culture, which inspired his first solo exhibition upon his return to the Galería Cubana. His interest in philosophy, rituals, botany and zoology was further confirmed during his trip to the United States, where he encountered Native American culture.

In 1959 he moved to Paris, where he took part in solo and group exhibitions alongside the Surrealists he had read in Cuba. During the 1970s he travelled to Guyana, Mauritania and Venezuela to conduct ornithological research. As a result of these escapes, he increasingly favoured photography in order to record objectively his feelings towards nature. His paintings are far more subjective, approaching shamanism through a poetic, tawny and primitive aesthetic. In the warm tones of his canvases, faces merge with the landscape, leaving an impression of mystery and transcendence. He died on 30 March 2011 in Paris.