CubaMinrex. Sitio del Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores de Cuba

First Meeting between Fidel and Guayasamin 50 Years Ago, Recalled.

CUBA, May 7, 2011.- With the inauguration on Friday of the photographic exhibition “50th Anniversary of the First Meeting between Fidel and Guayasamin,” an event that strengthened the fraternal bonds existing between Cuba and Ecuador were recalled at the center named after the Painter of Latin America.

Edgar Ponce, ambassador of the South American nation to Havana, recalled that half a century ago, in the evening of May 6, 1961, Guayasamin painted the first of the four portraits he would made throughout his life of the historic leader of the Cuban Revolution.

He pointed out that, in a whirlwind of questions about the painting, brushes, canvases and other dissimilar topics, of explanations about the armed struggle and the challenges Rebel Cuba was facing, Guayasamin painted in hardly a few hours the work that deserved Fidel’s praise and that, in correspondence, the artist promised to give him as a present at the Ecuadorian embassy the following day.

He underlined that on that occasion a friendship that would recall the one that existed between national heroes Jose Marti and Eloy Alfaro in the 19th century began, as a result of which those masterly and eternal canvases perpetuating close bonds between two exceptional men and two Latin American peoples made their mark.

Havana City Historian Eusebio Leal praised this exhibition that preserves a historic event and a good relationship, paradigms of the fraternity of two important figures and by extension their respective peoples.

In a letter from Quito, read during the ceremony, and on behalf of Guayasamin’s family, Pablo, son of the artist that bequeathed The Chapel of Man to The Americas and humanity and president of the foundation that treasures his work and heritage, expressed his appreciation for this tribute, and made reference to the photographs testifying to the meetings held between his father and Fidel in several historic moments.

Attending the inauguration of the exhibition were Armando Hart, president of the Jose Marti Cultural Society, and Kenia Serrano, president of the Cuban Institute for Friendship with the Peoples, among other personalities. (Cubaminrex-Cuban News Agency)