page_title: Manuel Carbonell
section_title: Beginnings as a sculptor
hierarchical_section_title: Manuel Carbonell / Beginnings as a sculptor
caption_attribution_description: English: Manuel Carbonell, at his studio in Havana, Cuba, carving out of stone the award-winning sculpture "End of a Race" for the III Bienal Hispanoamerica del Arte, Barcelona, Spain. 1952
context_page_description: Manuel Carbonell was a Cuban Contemporary and Modern artist, regarded as among the greatest Cuban sculptors of his generation. He was part of the generation of Cuban artists, which includes Wifredo Lam and Agustín Cárdenas, that studied at the Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes "San Alejandro", Havana, Cuba. Carbonell's inexhaustible vision and his ever-changing style is the product of a brilliant talent with an academic background. Ceaselessly searching for the essence of form and the absence of details, he empowered a sense of strength and monumentality to his work. Until the age of 92, he had continued to work daily in his studio.
context_section_description: His classical and religious period developed between 1945 and 1959 some of his many important commissions included the stone carvings as bas-reliefs of the Twelve Stations of the Cross, along with The Last Rites located at Las Lomas Del Jacan in San Miguel de los Baños, Matanzas province. Last Rites, was exhibited at the National Capitol in Havana. He also sculpted a statue of the Virgin Mary for the Association of Catholic University students in Havana. A life size wood carving of a crucifixion for the chapel at the Covadonga sugar mill in Las Villas, Cuba.
  Carbonell's work received immediate recognition.  Dr. Roberto Lopez-Goldaras, the art critic of Havana's Diario De La Marina, in Havana, said in 1951 about his work, "We foresee for the young and distinguished sculptor Manuel Carbonell a great future; (he) who had been able to conceive a sculpture like "Eternity", will without a doubt, earn himself a glorious name, which is already a euphoric name, accredited among the literary and artistic names of Cuba."
  Carbonell participated in numerous national competitions and was the recipient of many awards. The life-size stone carving Fin de Una Raza (End of A Race) earned him his first international award in 1954, for the III Bienal Hispanoamericana de Arte, in Barcelona, Spain.  The sculpture became part of the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts in Havana; it appeared on the cover of Reader's Digest magazine in May 1956.
caption: Carbonell carving out of Capellania stone, typical of Cuba, this resembles granite because of its density.
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