Fine Print

Bachs watched Alea’s film and chose one scene to feature—the first-person view of a rifle aimed at a man through a crude window. His simple yet effective composition was the first step on a path that would lead Bachs to a career as an internationally acclaimed poster maker. He would share his success with several other artists, all selected by the ICAIC (Cuban Institute of Cinematic Arts) to illustrate not only Cuban-made films, but every imported film that was shown in Cuba’s movie theaters.

Before the 1959 Revolution, Cuban movie posters were heavily influenced by Hollywood, with the end goal being ticket sales. After Fidel Castro took power, movie theaters were open to all people, and the government was not interested in selling any one particular title. Suddenly, ICAIC designers were producing more than promotional materials; they were creating works of fine art.

The importance of the Cuban movie poster did not come from aesthetics alone. During the 1960s and ’70s, leftist artists around the world saw the Cuban Revolution as the nest of their ideas and ambitions. Many famous European artists gave workshops to ICAIC designers. Well-known painters like Spain’s Antonio Saura and Chile’s Roberto Matta were also contributing their expertise. The final product was an eclectic work of art that reflected the individual style of each artist and their influences. As Susan Sontag wrote in her introductory essay to Dugald Stermer’s 1970 book, The Art of the Revolution, “[Cuban posters] show a wide range of influences from abroad which include the doggedly personal styles of American poster makers like Saul Bass and Milton Glaser; the style of the Czech film posters from the 1960s by Josef Flejar and Zdenek Chotenovsky; the naïve style of the images d’Espinal; the neo-Art Nouveau style popularized by the Fillmore and Avalon posters of the mid-1960s; and the Pop Art style, itself parasitic on commercial poster aesthetics, of Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, and Tom Wesselman.”

For decades, Cuban movie posters have been made using the silkscreen process. The posters are individually hand printed with thick paint that gives a texture reminiscent of brushstrokes. Each color is printed separately, requiring 24 hours to dry before the next color can be applied. Because of their painterly look, large format (20” x 30”), bold palette, and varied styles, post-Revolution film posters were instantly respected as legitimate works of art both in Cuba and abroad. ICAIC artists were competing in the same design contests as their counterparts from Poland, Czechoslovakia, Germany, Italy, Japan, and elsewhere, often bringing home coveted prizes.

Cuban posters are very attractive to collectors because of their limited print runs, usually editions of 500. Of the originals, many were posted on public walls and billboards, and more still destroyed by tropical heat or bug infestation. Some prints have fetched four figures at auction—not bad for posters printed less than 50 years ago. No records were kept of how many movie titles were printed, but based on Lincoln Cushing’s Revolution! Cuban Poster Art, it’s estimated that “ICAIC’s total production to date is between 2,300 and 2,900 distinct titles.”

Cuban movie posters are still being produced, though these days they’re mostly reprints of classic designs. Only a handful of the original golden team from the ’60s and ’70s are alive. Half of them left Cuba to work as freelance artists in other countries. In 1995, during an interview published in the book El Cartel de Cine Cubano (The Cuban Movie Poster) by Jesus Vega, Eduardo Muñoz Bachs spoke about the current state of poster making in Cuba. “It’s all abandoned. I would say that the main reason is the loss of support and incentive to the graphic artists. We created our own incentives by working as a team, loving our jobs, the enthusiasm of creating, the importance that those posters had at the international level, and all the prizes we won.” For two decades they were able to produce a body of work that put Cuba on the map among the best graphic design in the world, a feat that will probably never be repeated.







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