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Waldo Diaz Balart

Waldo Diaz Balart (b. 1931, Banes, Cuba) is a Cuban painter and sculptor currently living in Madrid, Spain. Díaz-Balart studied accounting and political science and economics in Havana before moving to New York City to pursue art studies in 1959. From 1959 to 1962 he studied art in the Museum of Modern Art, New York. In 1967 he became a lecturer in many cultural centers and universities of the United States, Poland, Spain, Germany and Netherlands. He acted in two movies by Andy WarholThe Life of Juanita Castro (1965) and The Loves of Ondine (1968). He was friends with fellow artist Andy Warhol actor Louis Waldon.  Díaz-Balart lectures frequently and his work – explorations of color and light in geometric paintings and light sculpture – has been widely exhibited. In 1966 the Studio Gallery in Washington, D.C. presented an individual exhibition. In 1967 he presented an exhibition in the Iris Clert Gallery in Paris. In 1967 he joined Mass Art Inc. in partnership with Sujan Souri, Dorian Godoy, and Philip Orenstein. The company manufactured the first inflatable chair designed by Philip Orenstein which is now included in the permanent collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. In 1998 he showed "Waldo Balart. Black Painting" in Galería Edurne in Madrid. In 1964, he exhibited in the Pan American Union Building in Washington, D.C. and in 1968 in the Gallery of Modern Art, New York. In 1970, he participated at the first San Juan Biennial del Grabado Latinoamericano (Biennial of Latin-American Engraving) at the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture in Puerto Rico. He had his first major exhibition in 1972, at the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo. In 1979, he participated in the Third Biennial Internacional del Deporte en las Bellas Artes (Biennial of Sport in Fine Arts) in Barcelona, and in 1995 he participated in the international art fair Art Cologne in Germany. In 2002, he was honored as a Frost Art Museum of Florida International University fellow.

He had one-man shows in the Netherlands and in Spain. He is the recipient of a Pollock-Krasner Foundation fellowship. His work is in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid, the Mondriaan House in Amersfoort, The Netherlands, and the Museum of Modern Art in Hünfeld, Germany, among others.

RC19701022 Waldo Diaz Balart, silkscreen print 54_60, 35 3_4 x 27.5_ .jpg

Untitled, silkscreen print 54/60, 35 3/4 x 27.5" 

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