Something missing in Cuban studies on visual art is the revelation of the material way of existence of those artists who have forged our cultural values at different moments in national history. Generally, artistic producers here have been approached as if situations of shortages and even destitution had not had a substantial repercussion on them, even of reverse rebound,
A somewhat shallow view of the process of creation has focused, more than anything, in presenting the works with their implications of meaning, the management of the most obvious signifiers and meanings. Very little has been spread of the difficult daily life of individuals who left imaginative contributions that today nourish the country's thesaurus, are included in important collections from abroad, and in some cases reach high sales prices, derived from financial speculation and the "stock exchange” inherent in the auctions. Hence there are people in the sector and outside this sector who find it normal to think that all performers with outstanding results in the visual imagery, from past and present times, have got to have money in substantial amounts, and multiple amenities.
A rapid assessment of the forms of survival that accompanied the gestation of the expressions of art, seen since the earliest Republican times to the prolonged stage that was opened with the social revolution of the sixties, will show us not only art firms that did more or less well by producing works in conformity with the bourgeois taste or that of influential officials, but also academic and modern painters who had to dedicate themselves to advertising or decoration, because the very limited purchase of works of art by the few collectors and dealers did not allow them to depend on the artistic profession.
The cultural richness of art does not necessarily coincide with the material state of life. To earn what is necessary not to be overwhelmed by the needs of the domestic environment, as well as to have the resources to materialize and to promote the visions of the individual aesthetic universe, is not the same as to yield to the demands of the market agents.
