OVERVIEW: LIFE & ART

Summary

Baruj Salinas was born on July 7, 1935, in Havana, Cuba, and went on to earn a degree in Architecture from Kent State University in Ohio. Following his exile from Cuba in 1959, he resided in Mexico City and San Antonio, before ultimately settling in Miami, Florida.  In 1974, Salinas relocated to Barcelona, Spain, where he collaborated closely with renowned artists such as Joan Miró and Antoni Tàpies, further refining his distinctive visual language.  He returned to Miami in 1992, where he continued his artistic endeavors and served as a Professor of Fine Arts at Miami Dade College.  On August 18, 2024, Salinas passed away at his home in Coral Gables, Florida. Today, his work is featured in numerous prominent museums and private collections across Europe, Asia, and the Americas.

Early Life & Education

Salinas was born on July 6, 1935, in Havana, Cuba, and showed an early affinity for art, nurtured by his mother Regina, a painter known for her floral still lifes. By the age of six, he was assisting her with her work and developing his own skills by sketching comic book characters such as Tarzan, Dick Tracy, and Superman. At eleven, Salinas began capturing the Cuban landscape and everyday scenes of Havana life—fishmongers, ice cream vendors, and children on buses—gradually progressing to more dynamic market scenes, which he sketched on-site and later brought to life with paint. Without a studio, he worked from his bedroom and held his first exhibitions at school. At fourteen, he joined the prestigious Círculo de Bellas Artes near Havana’s National Capitol, where he stood out as the youngest participant among seasoned professional artists.

In 1954, Salinas received a scholarship to study Fine Arts (painting) at Kent State University in Ohio, USA. However, feeling socio-economically alienated from the Fine Arts world, he redirected his focus to architecture, following in his father’s footsteps, while still painting privately and for a modest income. In America, Salinas painted commissioned portraits—mostly of friends and their families—retaining a realist style, but often idealizing his subjects. He later confessed to disliking portraiture. Meanwhile, his personal work began evolving, influenced by his architectural studies and exposure to Abstract Expressionism. His creative focus shifted from realism to abstraction, exploring building facades and structures, initially observed and later imagined, marking the beginning of his signature conceptual and three-dimensional style.

After earning his Degree in Architecture in 1958, Salinas lived and practiced professionally in Mexico City and San Antonio, while maintaining his painting career. He gained recognition through exhibitions in Havana and the U.S., including the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes and the Witte Museum. As he began receiving artistic awards in the early 1960s, he also grew disenchanted with architecture's structural rigidity. This tension ultimately drew him more deeply into the Visual Arts—a transition that would define his evolving creative identity throughout the decade.

Expanding Career: Americas 1961-1974

In 1961, Salinas joined the Cuban exile community in Miami, as a result of the Cuban Revolution. Though fluent in English, he, like many early exiles, faced significant economic hardship—particularly in the arts. Initially, he worked as an architect to support himself, while continuing to paint. In the early 1960s, with no established market for Cuban art in South Florida, he sold his paintings for as little as $25, often paid in small installments by buyers, some of whom were displaced Cuban collectors seeking to rebuild their lost collections.

Throughout the 1960s, Salinas exhibited his work across the U.S. and internationally in Mexico and Guatemala. His style continued to evolve, moving fully into abstraction, often inspired by themes like the Space Race and cosmic imagery. A key moment came in the mid-1960s, when he co-founded and later led Grupo GALA (Grupo de Artistas Latino Americanos), the first formal association of Latin American artists in South Florida. Alongside artists like Enrique Riveron and Rafael Soriano, GALA held regular meetings and exhibitions, helping to lay the foundation for a Latin American art scene in Miami.

Although architecture remained his primary profession through most of the 1960s, Salinas’ artistic recognition steadily grew. He won First Prize in watercolor at the Fort Lauderdale Museum of Art in 1968, and was awarded the prestigious Cintas Fellowship in both 1969 and 1970. These honors emboldened him to leave architecture behind and pursue art full time in the 1970s. His solo exhibition at Washington D.C.’s B.I.D. Gallery in 1971 marked this transition.

During this period, Salinas mentored fellow Cuban artist Juan González, imparting airbrush techniques that became crucial to González’s hyperrealist style. In 1969, Salinas introduced González to art patrons Jesús and Marta Permuy, helping establish the Permuy Gallery—one of the earliest Cuban art galleries in the U.S. As members of Grupo GALA, Salinas and others played a vital role in the gallery and Latin American art scenes, significantly advancing the Cuban art market in the U.S. during the late 1960s and 1970s.

Mid-Career: Spain 1974-1992

In 1974, Salinas relocated from Miami to Barcelona, marking the end of the GALA group, and the beginning of a transformative new chapter in his career. In Spain, he found key support from influential art dealer Juana Mordó, who introduced him to prominent circles in Madrid and Barcelona, helping establish his reputation and a steady base of collectors. He also formed connections with celebrated artists such as Joan Miró, Antoni Tàpies, and Alexander Calder, while immersing himself in Spain’s literary scene, forging lasting friendships with noted writers, including María Zambrano, José Ángel Valente, and Michel Butor.

During this two-decade period in Spain, Salinas fully embraced abstraction, shifting to a softer, more restrained color palette dominated by whites and grays. These tones symbolized clouds—a motif central to his series “The Language of the Clouds,” which explored abstraction through subtle form and symbolism. Inspired by his literary peers and a fascination with language, Salinas also incorporated pictographs and alphabets from diverse cultures—Chinese, Japanese, Greek, Iberian, and Hebrew—into his work, seeking to distill meaning into pure, abstract expression.

Collaboration became a hallmark of this era. In the 1980s, he worked extensively with poets and writers, creating richly interdisciplinary works. One of the most notable was Tres Lecciones de Tinieblas (1980), produced with José Ángel Valente, which fused Hebrew mysticism and poetry and won Spain’s National Prize of Poetry. He also collaborated with María Zambrano on two books—Antes de la Ocultación: Los Mares (1983) and Árbol (1985)—which combined visual texture and philosophical text. In 1988, his etchings appeared alongside Michel Butor’s poetry in Trois Enfants dans la Fournaise, exhibited at the Museum of Bayeux in France.

Salinas also developed close ties with printmakers in Barcelona, including Rufino Tamayo and Japanese artist Masafumi Yamamoto. His 15-year collaboration with Yamamoto deeply influenced his own artistic technique, especially in printmaking, while Salinas’ methods likewise left a mark on Yamamoto’s work. This mutual exchange, described by peers as Salinas having been “Yamamotisized,” further enriched his creative practice during his prolific Spanish period.

Later Career: Miami 1992-2024

In 1992, Baruj Salinas returned to Miami and settled in Coral Gables, where he began a vibrant new phase of his career. Since his return, he exhibited internationally—in cities such as New York, Chicago, Tokyo, Madrid, Cairo, and Caracas—continuing to expand his global presence. Artistically, this period marked a renewed embrace of color, which Salinas attributed to the distinct light and cultural vibrancy of Miami, in contrast to the more subdued tones of Spain. This shift brought a richer palette and greater contrast into his work.  From 1993 to 2003, he served multiple terms as Arts Coordinator for the International Committee for Human Rights in Miami; and in 2001, he began teaching Fine Arts at Miami Dade College, where he actively curated and supported student exhibitions.

A significant milestone came between 2015 and 2017, when Salinas contributed 27 images to The Torah Project Humash, a richly illustrated volume that was formally presented to Pope Francis at the Vatican, with Salinas in attendance. In 2022, his contributions to art were honored with a major retrospective—Baruj Salinas: 1972–2022—at the American Museum of the Cuban Diaspora. Co-sponsored by Miami-Dade College’s Museum of Art and Design, the Freedom Tower, and state cultural institutions, the exhibition celebrated five decades of his influential artistic journey.  On August 18, 2024, Salinas passed away at his home in Coral Gables, Florida.