Waldo Díaz-Balart

Waldo Díaz-Balart (born Waldo Díaz-Balart y Gutiérrez on February 10, 1931 in Banes, Cuba) is a Cuban painter living in Madrid, Spain.

Díaz-Balart studied accounting and political science and economics in Havana before moving to New York to pursue art studies in 1959. From 1959 to 1962 studied art in the Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA. Professionally, on 1967 he develops as lecturer in many cultural centres and universities of USA, Poland, Spain, Germany and Netherlands. He acted in two movies by Andy Warhol, The Life of Juanita Castro (1965) and The Loves of Ondine (1968).

Díaz-Balart lectures frequently and his work – explorations of color and light in geometric paintings and light sculpture – has been widely exhibited. On 1966 presents an individual exhibition in the Studio Gallery in Washington, D.C. In 1967 presented an exhibition in Galerie Iris Clert Paris, France. In 1967 he joined Mass Art Inc. in partnership with Sujan Souri, Dorian Godoy, and Philip Orenstein. The company manufactured the first inflatable chair designed by Philip Orenstein and is now included in the permanent collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. In 1998 presents "Waldo Balart. Black Painting" in Galería Edurne, Madrid, Spain. In 1970 participated in the collective exhibition Salón 70 in the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes de La Habana. In 1964 exhibits in the Pan American Union in Washington, D.C. and on 1968 in the Gallery of Modern Art, New York, USA. On 1970 he participated at the first San Juan's Bienal del Grabado Latinoamericano (Biennial of Latin- American Engraving) at the Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña, Puerto Rico and in 1979 in the Third Bienal Internacional del Deporte en las Bellas Artes (Biennial of Sport in Fine Arts) in Barcelona, Spain. On 1995 participated in the International Art Fair, Köln, Germany.

Most recently, he had one-man shows in the Netherlands, in Spain and in the United States at the Art Gallery of Florida International University. He is the recipient of a Pollock-Krasner Foundation fellowship and his work is in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid, the Mondriaanhuis in Amersfoort, The Netherlands, and the Museum of Modern Art in Huenfeld, Germany, among others. In 1992 he published the book Waldo Díaz-Balart, Ensayos de Arte.

His sister, Mirta Díaz-Balart, was Fidel Castro's first wife. His nephew Mario Díaz-Balart is a US congressional representative and another nephew, Lincoln Díaz-Balart, is a former congressman.