José Bedia

b. 1959 in Havana, Cuba; lives and works in Miami, Florida


From an early age, José Bedia excelled in drawing, comics and illustration, developing the formal skills he has employed during his artistic career. As a teenager he joined the famous San Alejandro Academy after which he graduated with honors from the Instituto Superior de Arte in  Habana, Cuba. He was a pioneer of the radical transformation of Cuban Art. His passion for the primal Amerindians complemented his anthropological studies on Afro-Transatlantic cultures, studying in depth the faith, beliefs, and religion of the “La Regla Kongo” (in which he was initiated in 1983), the “Regla de Ocha,” and the Leopard Society of Abakuas, among many others.

Bedia has exhibited in La Habana, Sao Paulo, Venice, and Beijing Biennales and his works are in private and public collections such as Museo Nacional Palacio de Bellas Artes (La Habana); MoMA (NYC); the Metropolitan Museum of Art (NYC); the Whitney Museum of American Art (NYC); The Guggenheim; Tate Modern; Smithsonian Institution (Washington, D.C.); The Colección Daros (Zurich), and more.

 http://josebedia.com/