Jose Morillo's Naïve Art

Naïve Art, by Jose Morillo

Live music, dancing, farmers working, palm trees, Dominicans enjoying life, these are the scenes often found in Jose Morillo's paintings.

Jose Morillo was born in Santo Domingo, in 1975. He briefly studied art under Miguel Gómez (Santo Domingo, 1953), but is mostly a self-taught artist. His work is a favorite among Dominican art collectors (considered the most prominent naïve artist of his era), and has won several national and international awards. Since 1997, Morillo has participated in solo and collective exhibitions in Dominican Republic and abroad–including New York, Boston and Miami.

León Bosch: Portraits from the Tropic

La niña de los limoncillos, completed in 1969

The Last Supper, completed in 1972

Shoeshine boy, completed in 1985

Portrait of John, completed in 1985

Portait of a Dominican teenager, completed in 1987

Portrait of Ramonita, completed in 1987

Maxima, completed in 1989

The peasant girl, completed in 1992

Portrait of my Father, completed in 1996

Portrait of Ramonita, completed in 1997

Portraits from the Tropic, by León Bosch

This selection of portrait paintings by Dominican artist Leon Bosch, spanning almost three decades (1969-1997), is a view through the artist's eyes at the people and scenes that have surrounded him throughout his career.

León Bosch, born 1936 in Santo Domingo, is best recognized as the son of former Dominican president and author, Juan Bosch. But to art lovers and artist alike, he is Leon Bosch the artist, admired for his skills in portraiture, landscapes and still life paintings.

Bosch, began his life as an artist in his early teenage years, but would soon find himself exiled in Cuba with his father under the Trujillo dictatorship. During his stay in Cuba he studies art at the Academia de Arte San Alejandro in Habana. His family's exile later has Bosch traveling to South America and Europe where he continued his artistic studies. His family returned to Dominican Republic after Trujillo's assassination, and his father was elected president in 1963, only to be removed and exiled again. The Bosch family returns once again to the country in 1965, and Leon goes on to build a successful career as an artist.

Jose Levy Drawings 2017-2018

Family Sunday, completed in 2018

Andullero (Tobacco roller), completed in 2018

Goat eating hog plums, completed in 2018

Goico as a faun masturbating, completed in 2018

Anti-Insomnia Method, completed in 2017

Reading the constitution in a latrine, completed in 2017

The Man-Eater vs a dog, completed in 2017

Guinea hen, completed in 2017

Delivery, completed in 2017

Mama, completed in 2017

"José Levy addresses popular imaginary, rituals, mythologies and gestures of daily Dominican chaos with a level of expressive skill, freshness, dark humor, corrosive irony, metaphorical precision and inevitable grace that reaffirm the vitality of his rotund and distinctive creative emergence..." (Amable López Meléndez)

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José Levy, pintor y dibujante Dominicano, nació el 30 de marzo de 1978 en Santo Domingo, República Dominicana. Realizó estudios de publicidad en la Universidad Acción Preeducación y Cultura (APEC). En el arte su formación es autodidacta.

Persio Minier: Artist from Mao, Valverde, Established in The Bronx

Inmigrantes (series), completed in 2018

Inmigrantes (series), completed in 2018

Inmigrantes (series), completed in 2018

Inmigrantes (series), completed in 2017

Inmigrantes (series), completed in 2017

Inmigrantes (series), completed in 2017

Inmigrantes, a series of abstract paintings by Persio Minier, completed between 2017-2018

If you were born and raised in the Dominican Republic, there is a good chance that you recognize the sandal tracks on Persio Minier's "Inmigrantes" series of abstract paintings, in which he retells that familiar immigration story line of the American dream.

In the works Minier uses red to represent the struggle, white for success, and sandal prints to represent the persons.

Persio Minier was born in Mao, Valverde, Dominican Republic. From a young age he showed interest in art and began to draw. He later moves to Santiago where he studies art under Jacinto Dominguez, a great influence to Minier.

Today, Minier lives and works in the Bedford area of the Bronx.

7 Sculptures by Gaspar Mario Cruz

Baquiní
Mahogany, 46 x 37 x 34 inches, completed in 2006

Taina
Mahogany, 55 x 14 x 10 inches, completed in 1980

Cacica (Chieftain)
Mahogany, 22 x 12 x 6 inches, completed in 1980

The Family
Mahogany, 24 x 11 x 13 inches, completed in 1950-60

The Lovers
Mahogany, 26 x 9 x 8 inches, completed in 1950-60

The Lovers
Bronze, 20 x 4 x 3 inches, completed in 1950-60

The Lovers
Wood, 42 x 10 x 11 inches, completed in 1948

Sculptures by Gaspar Mario Cruz

His themes and subjects are the people and stories of the Dominican Republic. His preferred medium was Mahogany wood, with that rich brown color that matched his skin. Gaspar Mario Cruz (1929-2006) was born in San Francisco de Macoris, where he remembers molding his first clay figure when he was only eight years old.

His sculptures, mostly wood carvings, associate the material of nature with legends and popular beliefs about gods, powers and ability to survive, achieving a great metaphor for nature and life.
–Jeanette Miller: Gaspar Mario Cruz 'The Poet of Forms'

Cruz studied art at the National School of Fine Arts under Manolo Pascual and Juan Cristóbal. He was a founding member of the Groupo Projecta—which members include; Leopoldo Perez, Fernando Peña Defilló, Thimo Pimentel, Ada Balcácer, Domingo Liz and Félix Gontier.