Rene Portocarrero (1912 - 1985). René Portocarrero was a Cuban artist recognised internationally for his achievements. Portocarrero began his artistic education at the San Alejandro academy, but left early and is hence considered self taught. He put on his first exhibition in 1934, at the Havana Lyceum, beginning a long and fruitful career which included a 1937 collaboration with Mariano Rodríguez and work as a free studies teacher of painting and sculpture. After travels in Haiti, Europe and the United States he gave his first show to an overseas audience at Julien Levy's gallery in New York City in 1945. In 1950, he worked with Wifredo Lam, Mariano, Martinez Pedro and Amelia Peláez in the village of Santiago de las Vegas. In 1961, he had meetings with Fidel Castro in the José Martí National Library, where they discussed culture. René received lessons in painting from Nicolás Guillén Landrián. In 1977 he worked for the Japan Women's Association. In 1979, he worked for UNESCO and AIAP. He knew Peggy Guggenheim. In the 1980s, he taught Victor Miquel Moreno Piñeiro, cousin of Servando Cabrera Moreno. As well as a painter and sculptor, Portocarrero worked as a ceramicist, scenic designer and book illustrator, publishing his own Las Máscaras in 1935 and El Sueño in 1939. He was also a muralist, producing public artworks for the Havana Prison, a church in Bauta, Cuba, the Cuban National Hospital, the Cuban National Theatre and the Habana Hilton. His artworks form part of the permanent collections of galleries in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, France, Peru, the United States, Uruguay and Venezuela, as well as his native Cuba. In his lifetime he won best collection at the seventh São Paulo Art Biennial, was honoured by the governments of Bulgaria and Poland, and given a seat on UNESCO's International Association of Fine Art. Five of his paintings can be viewed online at www.vanguardiacubana.com. In 1981 he received the Felix Varela prize from Cuba and in 1982 he received the Aztec Eagle, Mexico's highest award.