Conrado Walter Massaguer y Diaz was a Cuban artist, political satirist, and magazine publisher. He is considered a student of the Art Nouveau. He was the first caricaturist in the world to broadcast his art on television. He was first caricaturist to exhibit on Fifth Avenue. He was the first caricaturist in the world to exhibit his caricatures on wood. He, and his brother Oscar, were the first magazine publishers in the world to use photolithographic printing.
He created the magazine Social with his brother Oscar to showcase Cuban artistic talent. The duo later created the magazine Carteles, which became for a period the most popular magazine in Cuba, which was purchased by Miguel Ángel Quevedo in 1953.
In his life, he met and drew caricatures of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Walt Disney, Albert Einstein, the King of Spain, and many others. In sum total, he was the author of more than 28 thousand caricatures and drawings. Ernest Hemingway once had to refrain himself from punching Massaguer in the face after the artist drew an unflattering caricature of him. The dictator Gerardo Machado, however, did not punch Massaguer for his own unflattering caricature - he had the artist deported.
He was one of the most internationally renowned Cuban artists of his day, and his art is still regularly featured in galleries across the Western Hemisphere and Europe.
Early life Massaguer was born on October 18, 1889, in Cárdenas, Cuba. In 1892, his family moved to Havana.
When the Cuban War of Independence broke out, Massaguer's family escaped the country. From 1896 to 1908, he lived in Mérida, Mexico. However, during this time, his parents enrolled him in the New York Military Academy, where he stayed during school years.
In 1905, after graduating the military academy, he briefly attended the San Fernando school in Havana, where he was tutored by Ricardo de la Torriente and Leopoldo Romañach.
In 1906, less than a year later, he returned to the family home in Mexico.
Career as artist
Early career While living in Yucatán, Mexico, Massaguer published his first caricatures in local newspapers and magazines. These included La Campana, La Arcadia, and the Diario Yucateco.
In 1908, he moved back to Havana. After returning to the island in 1908, Massaguer began mingling with Havana's aristocratic circles, forming close friendships with some of the city's most powerful and influential men, as well as winning the favor of many women who were quickly charmed by him. Massaguer, largely self-taught, honed his style using the avant-garde techniques he studied from the European and American magazines that were widely available in Cuba at the time.
He started drawing for El Fígaro, and was featured prominently on the cover in 1909.
After two years of refining his craft, Havana announced a poster contest aimed at attracting North American tourists to stay in the city during the winter months. Notable figures like Leopoldo Romañach, Armando Menocal, Rodríguez Morey, Jaime Valls, and others also entered the competition. The jury was particularly impressed by the modern execution and creative solution of one piece, signed by Massaguer, who was relatively unknown at the time.
The jury deliberations caused a great controversy. The prize was ultimately awarded to the Galician painter Mariano Miguel, who had recently married the daughter of Nicolás Rivero, the wealthy owner of the conservative newspaper Diario de la Marina. Although Massaguer received only an honorable mention, the fraud scandal caused such an uproar that his name quickly entered the public spotlight, and he became an overnight sensation.
In 1910, he became co-owner of the advertising agency Mercurio, with Laureano Rodríguez Castells. At Mercurio, he led the Susini cigar campaign, and earned substantial wealth.
Massaguer has been described as a restless man, in both mind and body. After earning enough money from his art to begin traveling, he was almost always doing so. He constantly traveled between New York City and Havana, Mexico and France, Europe and the Americas.
In 1911, his reputation among the Havana socialites solidified when he organized his own first public caricature exhibit, and also the first Caricature Salon ever held in the Americas, hosted at Athenaeum of Havana (the Ateneo), and the Círculo de La Habana. Other exhibitors here included Maribona, Riverón, Portell Vilá, Valer, Botet, Barsó, García Cabrera, Carlos Fernández, Rafael Blanco, and Hamilton de Grau. In 1912, in the New York American Journal, he published his first Broadway drawings.
From 1913 to 1918, he was an editor for Gráfico.
Social
In 1916, he created the magazine Social with his brother, Oscar H. Massaguer. Social's contributors included Guillén Carpentier, Chacón y Calvo, Enrique José Varona and others. Social has been described as Massaguer's great love in the magazine industry, and was the property that historians say he cared the most about. Social was an innovative magazine, being the first magazine in the world to use a modern printing process called photolithographic printing.
Social set cultural trends, not only in the fashion of Cuba, but in art, politics, and Cuban identity. Social catered to a certain aesthetic in Cuba - that of the sophisticated elite socialite - but Massaguer would also use this magazine to ridicule and jibe against that same class of society when he found their personalities worthy of his contempt.
In Social, readers could find a variety of content, including short stories, avant-garde poetry, art reviews, philosophical essays, and serialized novels, as well as articles on interior design, haute couture, and fashion. Occasionally, the magazine also featured reports on sports such as motor racing, rowing, tennis, and horse riding. The cultural promotion efforts of both Massaguer and Emilio Roig de Leuchsenring are evident in the magazine. Notably, this period overlaps with their involvement in the Minorista Group, which was then at the forefront of the country's intellectual life. Many contributors were devoted members of the group, leading some experts to consider Social as the cultural voice of the Minoristas.
One of the features of Social magazine was its section called "Massa Girls," which was a play on his own name, and pronounced with a glottal 'g' in a similar fashion to the letter in Massaguer. Massaguer drew women as independent and free-thinking, and never drew the woman celebrity as a caricature of herself, but as a free agent surrounded by caricatures. However, Massaguer himself has been described as a womanizer in his personal life, and hesitant to fully embrace every facet of women's liberation.
In 1916, he also established la Unión de Artes Gráficas and the advertising agency Kesevén Anuncios.
The art critic Bernardo González Barroa wrote:
“Massaguer has solved the problem of working hard, living comfortably off what his art produces and not missing any artistic, sporting or social event. His broad, childish laugh, of a carefree individual who carries his luck hidden in a pocket, appears everywhere for the moment, disguising the pranks of pupils that lurk, mock and, finally, flash with satisfaction at finding the characteristic point after having analyzed a soul... Massaguer's personality is beginning to solidify now. He has been the best-known and most popular caricaturist for a long time, but his technique had not reached the security, the mastery of values that he presents in his latest works, which is very natural and explainable”
Carteles
In 1919, Massaguer and his brother created the magazine Carteles. Carteles gained the widest circulation of any magazine in Latin America, and the most popular magazine in Cuba for a time, until that title was claimed by Revista Bohemia. Carteles remained in print until July 1960. This magazine showcased Cuban commerce, art, sports, and social life before the revolution.
In 1924, Carteles took a more political turn, with articles criticizing Gerardo Machado's government. It became a prime example of the humor and graphic design employed by artists like Horacio Rodríguez Suria and Andrés García Benítez to reflect on Cuban society and politics. Esteemed writers such as Alejo Carpentier and Emilio Roig de Leuchsenring also contributed to its pages. In 1953, Carteles was purchased by Miguel Ángel Quevedo, the director of Bohemia.
In 1921, Massaguer created the Primera Exposición de Humor (the First Humor Exhibition).
Cinelandia
In January, 1921, Massaguer and his brother collaborated to create yet another magazine, Cinelandia, a magazine focused on Hollywood and cinema lifestyle. Massaguer acted as Artistic Director of this magazine, where he set the artistic tone, selected the photographs, managed the layout, tone, and visual balance of the magazine. Cinelandia was more visually motivated, and was not focused on the written word. This magazine heavily featured Hollywood actors and celebrities of the day, far more than it did those celebrities of Mexico or Argentina - even though in this era, the three different film industries were relatively comparable in size.
In April, 1921, Cinelandia quoted the Argentinian Columbia University professor, Enrique Gil:
"[Latin American] merchants have the movies as guides. They have discovered that the demand for merchandise manufactured in the United States is very great after an American movie has been shown in the locality and therefore they are very interested in knowing the dates of the exhibitions of the movies made by the main manufacturers [sic] of the United States...
I am very optimistic about the future of commercial relations between the two Americas, because due to your disinterested [North American] and idealistic [sic] attitude during the war, you have in your favor a psychological predisposition and interest on the part of the inhabitants of South America."
In 1923, Massaguer published the book Guignol, which was a collection of his art. In the introduction to Guignol, Massaguer wrote:
“Sometimes a tight shoe, a flowery buttonhole, a peculiar movement when walking, reveals the soul of the model... The tendency of those of us who follow the modern school of caricature is to simplify by exaggeration”
Marriage and New York studio
In 1924, he moved to New York with his wife, the niece of Mario García Menocal. The two spent their honeymoon at the Waldorf Astoria New York. Massaguer then established a studio in the city.
While living in New York, he worked on the magazines;
Life The New Yorker Collier’s Vanity Fair American Magazine Redbook Cosmopolitan Literary Digest Sunday World Town and Country
Return to Havana In 1925, Massaguer returned to Havana, and he settled down for a while, and he did not leave Cuba for several years.
Massaguer's daughter, Conchita, was born in 1927.
In 1927, he published Sobremesa sabática, which featured Emilio Roig de Leuchsenring, Fernando Ortiz, José Manuel Acosta, Juan José Sicre, Jaime Valls Díaz, Rubén Martínez Villena, Juan Marinello, Jorge Mañach, Alejo Carpentier, José Antonio Fernández de Castro, Antonio Gattorno Águila, José Zacarías Tallet.
In 1929, Massaguer exhibited at the Paris art gallery “Jean Charpentier.” He also toured Europe.
Also in 1929, at the League of Nations in Geneva, he acted as the art editor for the King Features Syndicate.
Exile In the late 1920s, Massaguer made the mistake of creating an unflattering caricature of the Cuban dictator Gerardo Machado - and was deported from the country. From 1931 to 1933, he was exiled in the United States, and spent time writing for publications regarding the American government's response to the Great Depression. While he was living in exile, Machado was overthrown in the Cuban Revolution of 1933. Massaguer resumed semi-regular travels back to Cuba, but primarily maintained his life in New York until 1937.