Luis Cruz Azaceta was born in Havana in 1942. He emigrated to the U.S. in 1960 shortly after Castro’s revolution. He lived in Hoboken, New Jersey with an aunt and uncle and worked with his uncle at a factory assembling trophies. After three years he was fired for trying to form an employees union—he was making $1.00 an hour at the time.

While looking for a new job he bought some crayons and paper and began to draw still-lifes. He eventually found work in a button factory and over the next three years took drawing classes at an adult education center in Queens. In 1966 he quit his job and enrolled full-time at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. He became a U.S. citizen in 1967.

After graduating in 1969 he went for a brief time to Europe where he was inspired by the masterpieces he saw in museums there. But upon his return to the U.S., it was the stark imagery of urban life in New York which came to dominate his work and lead him toward his expressionistic style. By 1975 his work was beginning to appear in various gallery exhibitions; in 1978 he had his first solo exhibition at the Frumkin Gallery in Chicago and exhibited at the Frumkin Gallery in New York City regularly through 1995.

From 1981 to 1984 he held a succession of teaching positions at the University of California at Davis, Louisiana State University at Baton Rouge, the University of California at Berkeley and the Cooper Union in New York City. He then remained in New York until 1992.

He has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York Foundation for the Arts and the Cintas Foundation.

Luis Cruz Azaceta is married to Sharon Jacques and lives with his family in New Orleans.

http://www.mamfa.com/artists/azaceta/index.html