Rolando Lopez Dirube was born in Havana, but traveled and lived around the world. He was best known as a muralist, but was also a teacher and mentored some of the finest contemporary Latin artists today. Dirube died in Puerto Rico, but not before he made a name for himself as one of the leading Cuban plastic artists.

Originally Dirube studied architecture in Cuba, and was among many things, a painter, muralist and sculptor. He worked in many mediums from wood and stone to oil, and was a firm believer that no artist should work in only one medium. Generally, Dirube is considered an Expressionist Cuban artist, though he may have argued on both of those titles.

Dirube was deaf from the time he was a child, and painting and art became an outlet of expression for him. His lack of hearing gave him an extraordinary advantage over his contemporaries because he felt the need to accentuate the physical beauty of all that was around him.

Though Dirube went into exile in 1960, he never felt that he was creating “Cuban” art while living in or out of his native Cuba. During his lifetime, he traveled all over the United States, Latin America and Europe, which leaves a very good possibility for one of his unknown works to be in existence somewhere. Dirube chose to live the rest of his life in Puerto Rico, which has also lumped him into the category of Puerto Rican artist.

During his lifetime, Dirube participated in a number of shows, particularly while living in the United States. While he was teaching at the Student Art League in New York in the 1950’s, he was able to exhibit his work and gained notoriety.

Today, his work is housed in museums worldwide, from Cuba to the United States as well as Germany, Venezuela and Puerto Rico. Could you own a piece of work from Rolando Lopez Dirube? We would be glad to help you authenticate a piece of work from this great Cuban artist.