Espérame Siempre: The Love Letters of Carlos Alfonzo to Luis Manuel del Pilar, 1976-1980

Luis Manuel del Pilar and Dr. Elizabeth Cerejido discuss the life and artistic impact of late Cuban American painter Carlos Alfonzo.

Through a generous donation by the Kadre family in honor of Peter P. Menéndez, the Cuban Heritage Collection recently acquired a series of illustrated letters written by Alfonzo to his lover Luis Manuel del Pilar. The letters document the early years of their romance in 1970s Cuba, their tumultuous separation brought on by Luis Manuel's exile to the United States, Alfonzo's journey to America via the Mariel boatlift, and their eventual reunion in Miami in the early 1980s, which culminated in Alfonzo's untimely death in 1991.

The program offers a rare insight into Carlos Alfonzo's personal life both in Cuba and in exile, as well as his evolution as a visual artist, first on the island and subsequently in the U.S., where he became one of the most well-known Cuban American painters of his time for his expressionistic style that merged abstraction with Afro-Cuban iconography.

The event concludes with a question and answer session with the online audience.



ABOUT THE PRESENTERS

Luis Manuel del Pilar was born in Miami, Florida, in 1958 to a Puerto Rican father and a Cuban mother. In 1961, his mother—a divorced, single mother of two—forcefully took Luis Manuel and his sister to Cuba, at the persuasion of her sister who was an ardent supporter of the Revolution. In Cuba, Luis Manuel attended the Camilo Cienfuegos Military Academy at the age of 11 and later enrolled in technical school to train as a customs officer. On June 6, 1976, Luis Manuel met the artist Carlos Alfonzo with whom he became romantically involved. By March 1980, just a few weeks before the events at the Peruvian Embassy in Havana would set in motion what would become the Mariel boatlift, Luis Manuel left Cuba to join his father in Miami with whom he had reconnected. Carlos Alfonzo would join him in the summer of 1980, after himself leaving Cuba via the port of Mariel.

Luis Manuel worked in the hospitality industry both in Miami and New York before working as a customer service representative for the New York Telephone Company (later Verizon) for 23 years. He eventually settled in New Jersey, where he retired and currently resides.


Dr. Elizabeth Cerejido is curator for Cuban collections for the Cuban Heritage Collection at the University of Miami Libraries. She is also an art historian and administrator whose professional and academic work has focused on modern and contemporary Latin American and Latino art, with a specialization in Cuban and Cuban American visual arts and cultural politics. She served as curator for the Patricia and Phillip Frost Art Museum at Florida International University and later as assistant curator of Latin American and Latino Art at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston. Learn more »