The granting of National Plastic Arts Prize must be consider as a crown of a race; that certainly is the sense of this reward which was given to Rita Longa in 1995; a woman who since her early beginnings in Art, has been accomplishing the difficult task of placing volumes on the space. This an exceptional opportunity; due to its paramount significance, for reviewing or at least showing a panoramic, maybe anthological vision of Rita´s contribution, going as far as her creation can be defined, a vision of her style, her personal hall-mark which confirms we are standing before an original piece of the artist.

This sculptor has a wide range, going from a little work to a monumental creation, she tries with her hands the provisional materials and so she does with the definitive ones, transforming trhe ideas in a concrete object with the help offered by brase, marble, wood.... Semantically, we find in her labour a preference for sensuality, tactile and sublime forms that chose female- body line
as an emblem of recognized masses, coming from emptyness and rubbing the Abstraction in
further development but frecuently tied up to the north marking a way in which coherence reveals the effort. Does it mean no exploration of other roads?.

Of course not; through restlessness, experimentation and searched shades, Rita sounds the building matter, using any object or scrap, throughout alternative ways, where the ego found in a woman of long-line proportions, implicit in a sort of aesthetic relate, seems to be hidden to jump afterwards into another example of what has been always eternal motivation in a labour iniciated in 1932. Anyway, even in her most reluctant work, appears the sense of rythym, a fluent concience that, as a feature of a well-educated intellect, goes over hedonistic yearnings of who has always enjoyed life.

Without abrupt ruptures, she manages to touch the intention of changes and transformation.

Rita´s women, eternal motivation, are supported by a great classical tradition, admirable in their double potenciality of general solidness and simbolic suggestion when setting the human body as center, rule and meausure of the existence and the forces that move the universe. These figures have the emphatic affirmation of the ancient, Bourdelle and Maillol with similar distance when it is time for heritage assimilation respecting everything that wakes up the amaizing sense of who started her work based in a centurial depuration process. In adittion, if we take a little bit of the chic given to Modernism by the Art Deco´s elegance we will obtain, generally speaking, the initial plataform of the sculptor.

Despite the varied concepts that form her personal fullfilment, she respects the perceptive levels of her auditory, the demands of the multifaceted team in which she frecuently participated and finally, the physical enviroment where her creations would be inserted. In this way, Rita´s creations has a permanent validity; urban modifications, enviromental disasters, aesthetics changes and fashion stations do not affect the communicative effectiveness of her works. The boceto of 1941 for Martyr´s Fountain, placed in 1947, shows the essencial elements for a period in which the bodies are the metaphor´s expressive vehicle; the lyric line that borders volumes of the central element has echo on the waters of the original project, working in close connection with the architect Horacio Collete, in the park dedicated to heroes of the revolution located near Paseo del Prado. These collaboration of the artist in social and enviromental projects includes Familiar Group located at the entrance of the National Zoo Park in Nuevo Vedado, Havana City. In the case of Virgen del Camino, the right conception of the author, make possible that an unreal image in the catholic repertoire of deities, could be object of cult. It is a great reward to whom , on the other hand, has worked the catholic iconography with talent and sucess. Her simple but devote faith has come true through her creations in Sagrado Corazón; fused stone at Surgical Medical Center, Vedado; Bonus Pastor, stone at garden of Seminario del Buen Pastor, Arroyo Arenas; Pietá, in 1957, marble at Colón Cementery, etc. Her works Cáncer, 1945, Prize of Gold Medal Exhibition of the Architectural League of New York in 1951; Form, Space and Light, 1953, marble placed in the facade of Fine Arts Museum, Havana and Indio Hatuey, 1955, that became symbol of the homonimous famous beer are terrestrial themes entwined with diverse demands. Rita has been always involved with different enterprises of a certain value in the national life.

Rita Longa is a remarkable promoter of the sculpture, this fact is supported by a strong personality tied up to the cultural development of the country, in other words, we can state that this artist, regarding to essence and presence, achieves one of the most complete and monumental piece made here after the Triumph of the Revolution, The Forrest of Heroes, 1973, in Santiago de Cuba, where are almost mixed the two main tendencies in the sculptor´s work: the dynamic structure which is representative of the abstract process present in her work and she easily inserts in the urban layout with renown figures of tribute receptors. The Swan´s Death , placed in the garden of National Theater, provides an excellent combination of abstract and figurative components joined with the eternal lines and volumes that characterized her work.

In 1995, a metalic structure was placed at the entrance of Matanzas, showing diverse alternatives like in Figura Trunca, terracota of 1937, in the II Painting and Sculpture National Salon, 1938, bestowed with the Second Prize; here is present one of her women, conceived with that special tone giving magnificient and monumental aspirations even to a minimal piece. Is precisely this sort of works, having beautiful fragments, measured or challenged, figures portraying ancient personalities or belonging to the epoch she lived, which conform her living panorama, always discreet, elegant, ready to serve to the main purpose of the project, not forgetting the intimate fussion of her delicate sensibility.

Courtesy of National Council of Plastic Arts

See more information at National Prizes. National Council of Plastic Arts