Javier Cabada (born October 25, 1931, in Barcelona, Spain) is a Spanish-American artist. He is well known for painting colourful, abstract works.^[1] His works have been exhibited in galleries and museums such as the Royal Institute of Thailand in Bangkok, Thailand; the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, and the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.

Background

Cabada was born on October 25, 1931, in Barcelona, Spain. He studied painting at the Escuela Nacional Superior Autónoma de Bellas Artes in Lima, Peru under Óscar Allain Cottera. He also studied at the Corcoran College of Art and Design, and the Ecola Massana in Barcelona. He has lived in the United States since the early 1960s and attained U.S. citizenship in 1976. He currently lives in Washington D.C.^[2]

Art

Cabada works almost exclusively as a painter, in acrylic on canvas. He counts Richard Serra, Francis Bacon, Frank Gehry, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Alberto Giacometti among his artistic influences, not only for their style, but also for their process and perfectionist natures.^[3] He experimented with several different styles before settling on acrylic on canvas.^[4] His earlier work was considerably more figurative than his later abstract works and was generally cartoonish and whimsical.^[5] Many of his early subjects were flowers, dancers, and portraits of classical composers and musicians. From 1973 to 1983, his painting of Frédéric Chopin was on exhibition in the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington D.C., and his portrait of Elvis Presley featured on the front cover of Music Educator's Journal in 1970.^[6]

Public collections

Cabada's works are in the following collections:^[7]

• Art Institute of Detroit, Detroit, MI
• Museum of Art, Dayton, OH
• Goethe House Museum, Frankfurt, Germany
• Art Institute, Chicago, IL
• Museum of Stafford, Stafford, CT
• Harvard University, Cambridge, MA
• Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI
• University of Alabama, Birmingham, AL
• National Marine Museum, Quantico, VA
• Music Educators and National Conference, Washington, DC
• Cafritz Art Collection, Washington, DC
• John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Washington, DC
• Georgetown University, Washington, DC
• Bicentennial Language Incentive Program, Philadelphia, PA
• Army Hospital Walter Reed, Washington, DC
• National Portrait Gallery, Washington, DC
• IBM Art Gallery, New York, NY
• TechWorld, Washington, DC
• Maryland University, MD