(b. San Juan, Puerto Rico, 1936).
Luis Hernández Cruz is one of only a few Puerto Rican artists who have been committed to abstraction throughout their careers. He was influenced by the Peruvian abstract expressionist Fernando de Szyszlo (b. 1925). His paintings of the 1960s are structured with areas of color that suggest abstract landscapes. The works he calls "figure landscapes" employ both geometric and organic forms. As in the painting Great Mangrove (1993), organic forms are often cast behind a screen of vertical lines. Suggestions of figures, though more common during recent years, are always masked somehow by abstract structures. In the 1970's Hernández Cruz carved abstract reliefs of local woods. He formed the Frente (Front) group in 1977 along with several other artists, and in 1984 became president of the Abstract Artists' Congress. Both groups aimed to further abstract art in Puerto Rico. Hernández Cruz was professor of art at the Univer
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