Hemingway Restoration in Havana lecture at SAMA

The Friends of Latin American Art at the San Antonio Museum of Art invite you to: Hemingway Restoration in Havana - US Teamwork with Cuba

Lecture by William Dupont, AIA
San Antonio Conservation Society Endowed Professor
The University of Texas at San Antonio
College of Architecture

Sunday, October 21, 3 p.m.
Auditorium. Free.

San Antonio Museum of Art
200 West Jones Avenue
General information: 210.978.8100

Ernest Hemingway lived in Cuba for 22 years, the latter half of his adult life, fishing, drinking, entertaining famous guests, and writing For Whom the Bell Tolls, Old Man and the Sea, A Moveable Feast, and Islands in the Stream. He once said, “I write as well there in the cool morning air, than I have written anywhere.” He left in the summer of 1960 for a few months of travel. He intended to return but instead became ill with mental depression and took his own life in July of 1961.

What remains in Cuba are the home and landscape he inhabited plus all the tangible elements of his life – first edition books, letters, hunting jackets, fishing rods, liquor bottles, his black Royal typewriter and stacks of magazines by the side of his bed – all left as they were when he shut the door in 1960. Hemingway was and still is greatly respected by the people of Cuba, so his home became Museo Hemingway in the mid-1960’s, a place where one can go to better understand the author’s life, inspirations, influences, and motivations. Over the decades, though, the facilities declined and decayed.

The situation grew so desperate that a few highly dedicated and concerned people formed the Hemingway Preservation Foundation and began a campaign to save Hemingway’s legacy in Cuba. In 2005 the World Monuments Fund and the National Trust for Historic Preservation both placed Finca Vigia, as Hemingway’s home is called, on their respective endangered watch lists. The Cuban government made a positive response by assigning funds and expertise to the museum site and allowing a team of US experts to observe and offer peer review.

The US Government granted a unique license to the National Trust and the Hemingway Preservation Foundation for US professionals to work in Cuba , and what resulted was an unexpected story of trust, collaboration, friendships, preservation and hope for the future.

Leigh Baldwin
Public Relations and Marketing
San Antonio Museum of Art
200 West Jones Avenue