After graduating from San Alejandro, he traveled to New York, where he studied with George Grosz and Yasuo Kuniyoshi at the Art Students League.

Back in Havana, he exhibited at the Ciudad Cultural Nuestro Tiempo, revealing himself as key emerging artists of the Cuban avant-garde.

In this first period he exhibited his works in Madrid (Bucholz Gallery, 1953), Washington D.C. (Pan-American Union, 1954), New York (Acquisitions of painting and sculpture, MoMA, 1958), and Caracas (Museum of Fine Arts, 1959).

There he maintained contact with Simone Collinet - André Breton's first wife, who directed the Fürstenberg Gallery-as well as Roberto Matta, Joan Miró, Max Ernst, Alain Bosquet and Richard Wright.

By 1969 he moved to San Juan, Puerto Rico, after obtaining a contract with La Casa del Arte gallery.

Two paintings by Fernández have been featured in cinema: "Développement d'un délire" appeared in Brian De Palma's film Dressed to Kill (1980), and in The Father of the Bride (2022), starring Cuban American actor Andy Garcia.

He left unpublished memoirs in which he recounts his childhood and youth in Cuba, as well as the influences of masters such as Diego Velázquez in the development of his career as an artist.