CubaPLUS Magazine

An institution with a sober neoclassical architectural style, with the delicious mixes of the eclectic inside, awaits the visitor in the Gibara Art Museum, a small city facing the sea in the northeastern province of Holguín.

This unique museum was inaugurated in 1972 in what was the first home of the architect Atanasio González de Riancho and at the end of the 19th century  passed into the hands of the local millionaire José Beola and Valenzuela.

The spacious residence of those wealthy gentlemen, renovated several times to perfect its structure, design and message, he says with 14 exhibition rooms where utilitarian elements and decorative items, including furniture and accessories, used by wealthy people of the area in domestic life and in select celebrations of social exchange within their mansions.

They weren't great or princely, but very comfortable and beautiful, and their owners did not spare resources to beautify them. As we suggested when talking about eclecticism, the pieces shown express different characteristics of the art used in family life and intimate during the 19th century and first half of the 20th, where the decorative desire reached a precious artistic level.

Glazed ceramics, porcelain, marble, bronze and glass shone then and still do in sculptures, tableware and ornaments, enriching the style of stylish furniture, made of precious wood.

Some of those exquisite pieces arrived in the little fishing town of Gibara, considered the end of the world then, in the colonial Cuban nineteenth-century. Thanks to long journeys in crossing the Atlantic, they were brought from France, England and Germany, mainly.

It is stated that the wealth of works of art stored in the Museum, both in rooms and shelter sites, they rise to more than 2,000 parts. On display there are two works by Gibara artist Juan Vecino Mayo, from the years 1929 and 1942 respectively, several sculptures made with the lost wax technique, highlighting a female figure representing the goddess of Fortune. Four semicircular arches with a polychrome stained glass window, considered the largest in the eastern provinces, embellish the room where Creole furniture is displayed. Made at the beginning of the 20th century, several bronze sculptures and screens with prints of European countries.

The Art Nouveau style, which emerged at the end of the 19th century, has a collection of great beauty in the Gibara Art Museum. In this regard, you can find such surprising and interesting samples that better suggest your visit to the place.

There are a few more wonders, like a set of furniture from the Austrian firm Thonet, a large collection of the Minutes of the Cortes Constituents of Spain, which belonged to the vice-consul of said country in Gibara. Also the Divine Comedy illustrated with engravings by Doré and two editions of Don Quixote, are among other works of universal literature published in the 19th century.

Gibara, a town of fishermen and simple people, who also periodically invite you to an interesting International Festival of Cinema, waiting for vacationers with no room for boredom.