The Cuban painter, Jorge Camacho, had two exhibitions in Havana, in 1955 and 1957, before moving to Paris in 1959. Once in Paris, he immediately adopted surrealism, in 1960, and had a show at Galerie Raymond Cordier. This exhibit also served as the setting for a 1962 event with the surrealist group, where he created an antireligious tribute to Oscar Panizza that featured a series of aggressive paintings, including L'Immaculee conception des Papes. André Breton wrote a preface to Camacho's 1964 exhibition at the Galerie Mathias Fels, describing his work as a painting of cruelty. Camacho's works, with their claw-like forms laden with ossuaries, borrowed their harsh themes from novels by Sade and Bataille. Camacho discovered esotericism with René AIleau, who exhibited his works in a show titled The Dance of Death, in 1976 at Galerie de Seine, writing: "It is essentially the Caput mortuum in its application, hence the emblematic importance of the skull in all of his paintings." Camacho was also fascinated with ornithology, which led to two exhibitions: History of Birds, an exhibition of paintings at Galerie Maeght, and an exhibition of his photos at Galerie Mathias Fels. Many of his paintings are haunted by the ibijau, a bird he observed on a trip to Venezuela. A visit to Peru inspired his first sand landscapes, which were shown in 1984 at Galerie Albert Loeb, under the title The Philosophy of the Landscape, in a reference to shamanism. In 2003, the same year as his retrospective at the Maison de l'Amérique latine, Camacho also had an exhibition at Galerie Tessa Hérold titled The Book of Flowers, which presented his new paintings of reinvented flora. 

Jorge Camacho

Born 1934 in Havana, Cuba. 

Inferno, Hommage à Lezema Lima, Oil on Canvas, 2007