Naive art on the open market is fairly rare on today standard. Here’s a  good example of a 1960 Manuel Hernandez Acevedo with original gold leaf frame. One of M.H.A most sought after theme are his iconic landscape of a rural landscape. The simplicity of this work is phenomenal, the trees are simple, the power lines are in the complete composition and steeple add a light neo-vintage taste to the work.

                                                                                                                                                                                  The frame on its own can’t go out unobserved. The original pure gold-leaf is still intact after more than 50 years of its application, something that give character and body to this particular work of art.

The pigments used on this 8″x 5″ inch painting  where recycle serigraph colors that M.H.A used. The colors are sharp and bold with a integration of simple spontaneous brush strokes around the main composition  very  representatives of  naïf art in Puerto Rico.  Today Manuel Hernandez Acevedos Painting can be found in importants collections for example the Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico.

http://www.mapr.org/en/museum/proa/artist/hernandez-acevedo-manuel

Painter and printmaker. Hernández Acevedo came from a very humble family, left school after the fourth grade, and worked as a shoemaker, assistant sign maker, and cook. In 1947 he entered the Graphic Arts Workshop of Division de Educación a la Comunidad (DivEdCo) and under the encouragement of American graphic artist Irene Delano, who was then the director of the Workshop, he learned silk-screening and began to paint, for which he had a natural talent. A simple, honest man, in his paintings Hernández Acevedo favored scenes of streets and houses in Old San Juan, in which such characteristic features of the old city as light posts, power lines and kites are frequent images. He also illustrated historical events such as the inauguration of Luis Muñoz Marín in 1948. His placement of pictorial elements in the composition, his keen eye for detail, the simplicity of subjects and shapes, and the variety of light and color have made him one of the main representatives of Art Naïf in Puerto Rico.

Joey Medrano MD