Marta Cazañas Permuy (September 22, 1938 – October 4, 2017) was a Cuban-American fine art patron, art collector, curator, art dealer, and promoter based in Coral Gables, Florida. She was an influential figure in the establishment of the Latin American art market of South Florida. She managed and co-founded Permuy Gallery, one of the first venues dedicated to Cuban art in the United States. She also hosted a long-running art salon where South Florida art, literary, business, and political figures would gather to discuss art and culture.
Early life Background and upbringing
Marta Teresita Cazañas y Díaz was born on September 22, 1938, in Havana, the second child of Cuban judge Pedro Pablo Cazañas and his wife, Raquel María Díaz y Teresa. Her parents were of prominent Matanzas-area families. Marta and her siblings, Raquel and Eduardo, would be raised on the Cazañas family's Buena Vista estate in Cárdenas bordering Varadero.
She and her older sister Raquel attended the Las Madres Escolapias de Cárdenas Catholic school. Upon graduating they enrolled in the University of Havana studying law and chemistry, respectively. In her early years as a young adult in Cuba, Marta also first encountered Cuban art through paintings and folk art. These encounters developed the early interests of what would eventually become her primary career during her life in exile.
Cuban Revolution
With the outbreak of the Cuban Revolution and the growing alignment of the Castro regime with Soviet-backed Communist doctrines, Marta became involved with the pro-democracy Counterrevolution. She became highly active within the MRR (the Movement to Recuperate the Revolution, or Movement for Revolutionary Recovery), a leading faction of the broader Castro resistance that was made up of a coalition of University of Havana students, high-level defectors of the Castro government, as well as members of the influential Christian professional organization the Agrupación Católica Universitaria (ACU).
As her involvement with the MRR deepened, Marta became among the few women given central roles in the organization's leadership and would also recruit other key operatives. As such, Marta's older sister Raquel and her husband, prominent psychiatrist and pro-democracy revolutionary René de la Huerta, also became involved. De la Huerta, a top member of the ACU, had previously been involved in efforts to oust Fulgencio Batista with Jorge Agostini and other anti-Batista figures. They would play an increasing influential role in the organization during the lead-up to the Bay of Pigs invasion and planning. In 1960 De La Huerta became Secretary of Intelligence of the MRR and Marta would often stay in his El Vedado residence with her sister during her MRR missions while the home served as an important covert MRR leadership base.
Through these activities Marta met Jesús Permuy, then the MRR's Secretary of Security. Marta would be assigned to aid him in his missions as his right-hand through his various roles, which included his elevation to Civil Coordinator and finally National Coordinator of the MRR. Marta's activities included organizing meetings, hiding contacts, and coordinating between MRR cells with aliases to avoid detection by Castro and Soviet counter-intelligence agents and infiltrators.
With the failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion in April 1961 and Castro's subsequent waves of opposition crackdowns, arrests, and executions, it became evident to many in the resistance that there was little chance of success in toppling the Castro regime or securing democratic protections. Marta and Jesús then used diplomatic contacts to escape for Venezuela in 1962 by way of Cuba's Venezuelan embassy. They remained in Venezuela for several months before relocating to the United States later that year to join the Cuban diaspora community there in exile.
Move to the United States
Marta and Jesús married in 1962 soon after resettling in Miami, Florida. They later relocated to Washington D.C. in 1966 where Jesús Permuy received his Master in Regional and City Planning (MRCP) from the Catholic University of America and served as chief planner for Anne Arundel County. The Permuy family then returned permanently to South Florida in 1969 when Jesús Permuy was appointed Planning Supervisor for the Dade County Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).
The Permuy Gallery
By the early 1970s the Permuys had become active in the early Cuban art community of South Florida. Their initial involvement came through Jesús Permuy's previous relationships with artists in Cuba such as José Mijares and Amelia Peláez, as well and through his professional work as several Cuban artists also worked in or studied architecture, including Baruj Salinas, Miguel Jorge, and Rafael Consuegra. Another important cultural circuit was his involvement in the ACU, which had now relocated to Miami and included several artists, architects, and business leaders. Throughout the 1960s the Cuban arts community in exile struggled with a multitude of issues including a lack of institutional venues to showcase Cuban art, as well as a lack of disposable income among collectors to buy artworks at prices that would support a sustained Cuban and Latin American art market.
In 1969 the Permuys were introduced to Juan González by Baruj Salinas. Shortly after, González, then a graduate fine arts student in the University of Miami, became close to Marta who, in turn, became an early supporter of his art career. By 1971 she helped secure him a studio space in a Coral Gables apartment at 1901 Le Jeune Road where he produced many of the works that led to his career breakthrough. In 1972 González graduated from the University of Miami and was preparing to relocate to New York City after successful exhibitions in the Whitney Museum and Allan Stone Gallery. As a result of his need to move, the Permuys then made arrangements with González to assume the lease to his art studio and subsequently convert it into a fine art gallery dedicated to Cuban art, becoming one of the first in the United States. The venue was in close proximity to Miracle Mile, the prominent center of downtown Coral Gables, and therefore easily accessible to visitors. González remained close to Marta after his move to New York and participated in collective exhibitions at Permuy Gallery. The gallery neighbored the apartment of Cuban artist Miguel Jorge, who was close to fellow Cuban artists Lourdes Gomez Franca and Dionisio Perkins, and introduced them to the Permuys. The three formed an influential group of artists in South Florida who were highly active within the Permuy Gallery's sphere. Once the gallery had opened, Marta became its manager and oversaw its operations, organized its events, and curated its exhibitions. As such, the gallery became closely associated with her and she developed long-running relationships with its affiliated artists and collectors. Though run as a standard fine art gallery, Permuy Gallery also became noticed for its departures from the standards of American fine art galleries. While it featured traditional white walls, it also infused a number of unconventional influences such as tropical indoor plants and thick residential window drapes. Permuy Gallery was also structured in weekly rather than monthly exhibition rotations to allow for continual change in the artworks as well as for more artists to be featured.
The main events associated with Permuy Gallery were its Friday Gallery Nights (referred to in Spanish as “los viernes”). These entailed wine-and-cheese exhibition openings to unveil the coming week's exhibition setup. In the evenings these would evolve into the Permuys’ art salon gatherings that would gather leaders and noted figures from the broader South Florida community to discuss art, literature, spirituality, politics, and other subjects in a setting that facilitated networking and well as intellectual stimulation. This was a significant way for many artists to meet future collectors and become known by other segments of the community that were largely uninvolved with the arts. It was also an important cultural meeting point within the Cuban exile community in Miami and the surrounding cities. Another aspect of the gallery's culture was the creation of original art directly linked to the site itself. These include an artwork created by Jorge that would serve as the gallery's "Closed" sign as well as an Expressionist portrait of Marta Permuy painted by Gomez Franca at the gallery.
In its approximately five-year span, Permuy Gallery featured many prominent as well as emerging Cuban and Latin American artists in individual and group exhibitions. Featured artists included the trio of Lourdes Gomez Franca, Miguel (“Mickey”) Jorge, Dionisio (“Dennis”) Perkins as well as Juan González, Rafael Consuegra, Emilio Falero, Margarita Cano, and Gabriel Sorzano. Another important group of artists that frequently exhibited in the gallery and participated in its Fridays was the Grupo GALA (GALA Group), the first formal professional organization of exhibiting Latin artists in South Florida. GALA, an acronym for Grupo de Artistas Latino Americanos (Group of Latin American Artists) was made up of the six artists Baruj Salinas, Enrique Riverón, Rosana McAllister, José Mijares, Rafael Soriano, and Osvaldo Gutierrez, most of whom were already well-established in Cuba. McAllister was the only woman as well as the only non-Cuban of the group, being from Argentina and of Irish ancestry. She would become another long-term associate of Marta Permuy who Permuy would frequently represent outside the gallery.
Another significant group of Cuban artists featured in the gallery were the famed Cuban Vanguardia artists, including Víctor Manuel, René Portocarrero, Amelia Peláez, Wifredo Lam and later prominent modernists outside Miami such as Cundo Bermudez. Though most of the Vanguardia artists either died or remained in Cuba after the Cuban Revolution, many prominent Cuban art collectors brought their works from Cuba to the United States and would sell them through the gallery by way of its consignment services. The work of these high-profile legacy artists would be a significant draw to collectors who in this period were seeking to re-establish links to their cultural heritage as it became clear over time that a return to Cuba would not be viable while the Cuban government was well-entrenched.
Notable participants in Marta's activities in Permuy Gallery included then-Miami mayor Maurice Ferre, Cuban art critic and poet Mauricio Fernández, future curator and scholar Ricardo Pau-Llosa, as well as Latin American art collector and patron Marcos Pinedo and his future wife Josefina Camacho. While the Permuy Gallery was noteworthy as a historic venture early in the establishment of Latin American art in South Florida, by the end of its run there would be other Cuban and Latin American focused art galleries that began to emerge. By the late 1970s and early 1980s a thriving gallery scene of several Cuban art galleries was established around the hub of Coral Gables and other growing pockets in the region which had allowed for a viable and sustained Latin American art market to flourish in South Florida in the ensuing decades.
During the Permuy Gallery period the Permuys were also involved in other ventures in design and community development that were connected to their network at the gallery. In 1973 they launched the firm Permuy & Associates Inc. which would be one of Jesús Permuy's main private sector architecture, urban planning, development and consulting practices. Marta served as the firm's first Vice President while its attorney and registered agent was prominent art collector and future Coral Gables Mayor Raul Valdes-Fauli.
The Permuy House