Agustín Cárdenas

Agustín Cárdenas was a major Cuban sculptor whose refined biomorphic language drew from Surrealism, African diasporic traditions, and the formal purism of mid-century modernism. A descendant of formerly enslaved people from Senegal and the Congo, Cárdenas was born in Matanzas—one of Cuba’s historic sugar-port cities—and trained under Juan José Sicre before studying at the Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes “San Alejandro.” He became an active figure in Havana’s emerging avant-garde, serving as a member of the Asociación de Grabadores de Cuba (AGC) between 1951 and 1955 and participating in the influential collective Los Once from 1953 to 1955.

Cárdenas’s 1955 move to Paris marked a pivotal shift in his career. Welcomed by André Breton into the Surrealist group, he entered a fertile environment in which West and Central African aesthetics, Pan-Africanist thought, and European modernism intersected. Breton famously described the sculptor’s hands as nimble “as a dragonfly,” recognizing an intuitive craftsmanship that would define his mature work. Immersed in Paris’s Afro-diasporic intellectual circles, Cárdenas later reflected, “In Paris, I discovered what a man is… what African culture is… what a Black man is,” a revelation that grounded his evolving sculptural vision.