Julio Eloy Mesa

Julio Eloy Mesa was born in Placetas, Las Villas, Cuba, on April 12, 1943. Since 1991 he resides in Austin, Texas, U.S.A. In the fifties he studied Commercial and Architectural Drawing at the Garcés Academy in Havana, Cuba. From 1960 to 1962 he took courses at the Escuela Nacional para Instructores de Arte, also in the Cuban capital. In the period from 1963 until 1966 he coursed 3 years at the Academia Nacional de Bellas Artes San Alejandro in Havana, Cuba. Later he made Graphic Design, at the Escuela de Diseño in Havana, Cuba. He also made Art History unfinished studies at the Facultad de Artes y Letras at the Universidad de La Habana from 1975 to 1976. The art forms he develops are mostly graphic design, scenic design and painting. Seven years from 1962 he was set designer at the Instituto Cubano del Arte e Industria Cinematográficos (ICAIC) in Havana, Cuba. From 1969 to 1991 he became also Art Director of Cine Cubano magazine at the Instituto Cubano del Arte e Industria Cinematográficos (ICAIC), Havana, Cuba. From 1986 to 1991 he was Graphic Designer at the Galería de Arte Domingo Ravenet in Havana, Cuba. And in 1990 he became a member of the Unión de Escritores y Artistas de Cuba (UNEAC).

Individual exhibitions

In December 1989 he made Carteles de Julio Eloy in the XI Festival Internacional del Nuevo Cine Latinoamericano at the Lobby of the Mara Movie Theater in Havana, Cuba and in 1991 he showed Retrospectiva. 60 Carteles de Cine de Julio Eloy. Selección 1970-1991 at the Galería Cine Chaplin also in Havana, Cuba.

Collective exhibitions

In 1966 he participated in the collective exhibition Jóvenes Plásticos Exponen for the XIII Anniversary of July 26 at the Galería INIT at the Hotel Habana Libre, Havana, Cuba. A year later he was part of an exhibition of Cuban Painters and Engravers that occurred in July at the Youth Pavillion in Montreal, Canada. In November 1971 He took part at the show Affiches Cubainsat the Musée d’Art et Industrie in Paris, France. In April 1975 at the Galeria Câminul Artei in Bucharest, Romania, he contributed with Graficâ din Cuba (Graphics from Cuba). And in 1989 he also paticipated in the XXI Salón Nacional de Propaganda Gráfica “26 de Julio” in Havana, Cuba.

Collections

Some of his works integrate the collections of the Instituto Cubano del Arte e Industria Cinematográficos (ICAIC), Havana, Cuba and also of the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Havana, Cuba.

Awards

Many of his works have won some prizes. For example in 1968 he won the “Adam Montparnasse” Group Award. Cent ans de lutte. because of the XXIV Salon de Mai Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris, France. In the early seventies (1973) he received an award in Poster in the Festival Internacional de Cine, in Moscow in the U.S.S.R. In 1976 he won the same prize in the IVème Festival International d’Affiches de Cinéma (XXVIIème Festival International du Film) in Cannes, France. And in 1990 he obtained a Design Award to the magazine Cine Cubano at the II Concurso Editorial de la Unión de Periodistas de Cuba (UPEC), Havana, Cuba.