CARLOS ENRÍQUEZ GÓMEZ (Cuba, 1900 - 1957). “Soldier on horseback”, 1953. Watercolor on paper adhered to fabric. Signed and dated in the lower right corner.

CARLOS ENRÍQUEZ GÓMEZ (Cuba, 1900 - 1957).
"Soldado a caballo" ("Soldier on horseback"), 1953.
Watercolour on paper adhered to canvas.
Signed and dated in the lower right corner.
Measures. 50 x 36 cm; 64 x 51.5 cm (frame).

Provenance: Manuel Reguera Saumell collection, recognised as one of the great Cuban writers and playwrights of the 20th century. As the set of photographs accompanying this collection testify, Reguera forged close friendships with the leading exponents of Cuban art during the years he spent in his native country. It was then that Reguera, backed by the bond that united him with Amelia Peláez, Rene Portocarrero, Carlos Abela and Antonia Eiriz, began his facet as a collector, giving birth to what would become his personal collection.

Carlos Enríquez has numerous figures of horses as protagonists or of riders on horseback, such as his work "Guajiro a caballo" ("Guajiro on horseback"). This recurring theme is directly linked to his brivant technique of fluid touches and dynamism that turn his compositions into dizzying artistic scenarios. Carlos Enríquez was a Cuban painter, illustrator and writer of the Vanguardia movement. Along with Víctor Manuel, Amelia Peláez, Fidelio Ponce, Antonio Gattorno and other masters of this period, he was involved in one of the most fertile moments of Cuban artistic culture. Today he is considered by critics to be one of the best and most original Cuban artists of the 20th century.Enríquez strove to develop a genuinely Cuban style that, fuelled by surrealism and modernism, was inspired by the landscapes, culture, social problems and way of life of Cuba. He also considered himself a rebel, and was often criticised for the supposedly explicit nature of his nudes, and for his bohemian lifestyle. Born in Zulueta, in the former Cuban province of Las Villas, into a wealthy Cuban family, Carlos Enríquez received little academic artistic training, so his art is considered largely self-taught. At an early age he moved to Havana to complete his undergraduate studies, and in 1920 his parents sent him to Philadelphia, where he studied commerce until 1924. At their insistence, he was allowed to study painting at the Pennsylvania Academy, where he took a summer course. Due to differences with his teachers, he never completed the course, which was the only formal art education he received. Shortly after his return to Havana he began to paint professionally, while working as an accountant at the Lonja del Comercio. In 1925 he took part in his first exhibition, and in 1927 two of his nudes were withdrawn from the Exhibition of New Arts in Havana after being considered "exaggeratedly realistic". However, 1927 the Cuban Vanguardia movement took its first steps, mainly thanks to this exhibition, and many of the artists who participated in it became the leading lights of the movement.

The episode convinced Enriquez to return to the United States. But he returned to Cuba in 1930. That same year, another of his exhibitions was aborted because of the allegedly explicit content of his paintings. He left Cuba again, this time for Europe, mainly Spain and France, where he continued his career as a painter and came into contact with Impressionism and Surrealism, currents that would radically influence his work. Some of his best works were produced in this period, including Bacteriological Spring and Virgen del Cobre (who is the patron saint of Cuba). Enriquez returned to Cuba in 1934, and began to develop a new pictorial style, which would become his personal trademark. He called it romancero guajiro, a modernist approach to the stories and colours of the Cuban countryside. As with the other avant-garde artists, the re-encounter with his homeland was the catalyst for his mature style and his commitment to the expression of Cuban social realities and popular myths. One of his preoccupations as an artist concerned the expression of an authentic Cuban-Caribbean culture, which he believed could only be found in the countryside, in its people, myths and Creole legends.