Pedro Hernandez Dominguez (born 1932) is a Cuban American artist primarily known for his sculptures in wood and stone as well as paper medium works.
[1][2][3] He was the only child of Havana medical doctor Pedro Lorenzo Hernández Gómez and his wife Eliosa Domínguez Lopez.
[4] Hernández was subsequently raised in Havana and attended the Instituto Edison de La Habana for both his primary and secondary education.
That year he was accepted into and participated in the Annual Exhibition of Fine Arts (Painting, Sculpture and Engraving) at the Palacio de Bellas Artes of Havana with other leading Cuban sculptors including Roberto Estopiñán, Enrique Gay García, Tomas Olivia, and Rudolfo Tardo.
[1] Hernández also exhibited his sculpture Trio at the prominent Cuban art gallery Color Luz, owned by the painters Loló Soldevilla and Pedro de Oraá.
[1] Hernández would also become connected to other prominent Cuban artists in this period including Amelia Peláez and Jose Maria Mijares.
[1] Made from layers of cut colored paper with forms that evoked his organic sculptures, Hernández's cut-drawings have been recognized as innovative by many art critics including Almodóvar, Armando Alvarez Bravo, and Margarita Cano, and would grow to become one of his signature mediums alongside wood sculpture.
He is also the subject of a solo exhibition in the Coral Gables Library, which includes his wood sculptures as well as his Blue Series of cut-drawings.
[3][6] In 1987 Hernández participated in a collective exhibition in Tonneins-Bordeaux, France coordinated by International Art Connection, for which he won an award for one of his cut-drawings, El Teide.
[1] In 1991 Hernández created a conceptual "forest" art installation of free-standing wood beams for the Metro Resource Center in downtown Miami.
[3] Significant exhibitions of Hernández's work from his time with O&Y Gallery included Medusa (2000), Maison des Dames (2003), and Venezia, La Serenissima (2007).
In 2001, his cut drawing Horizon was accepted into and featured in the 2nd World Festival of Art on Paper, held in Bled, Slovenia.
[11][12] In 2008 he was the subject of a solo exhibition in Stonington, Connecticut organized by painters Guido Garaycochea and José Ulloa featuring both sculpture and cut-drawings.
Hernández 's involvement in the 7 Plus One Art Project came through Cuban artist Emilio Hector Rodriguez with the initial concept centered on exhibiting seven painters and one sculptor.
This shift was the shown in the collective exhibition Lines: Contemporary Geometric Abstraction held at Cremata Art Gallery.
[1] In July 2015, Hernández was the focus of the solo exhibition Geometry in Motion in Miami Dade College's West Campus with text by art historian Anelys Álvarez Muñoz.
[15] The library’s permanent collection also features work by Salvador Dalí, Dale Chihuly, Peter Max, and Neith Nevelson.
Hernández's artwork has been extensively critiqued by noted critics of Cuban and American art, including José Gómez-Sicre, Loló de la Torriente [es], Juan Espinosa Almodóvar, Rafael Casalíns, Armando Alvarez Bravo, and Lillian Dobbs.
[17] Hernandez also frequently incorporates elements of color, such as blue patina, into the grooves of his sculptures to emphasize and enhance their forms.
[4] Hernández has exhibited his work in the United States, Europe and Latin America, including in New York City, Washington D.C., Miami, Connecticut, France, Cuba, Slovenia, Panama, Costa Rica, and Luxembourg.