User:ArtHisto

José Sainz Expósito (1906 -2010)

José Sainz[1] Expósito was a cuban soldier and sailor born in Havana. In the 1930s he emigrated to the United States of America where he lived until the beginning of World War II. He enlisted in the army of that country and served as a member of the crew of a B-29 Super Fortress heavy bomber in numerous combat actions.

Stationed in France from 1944 until the end of the war. Reassigned to the SS Victoria of the US Navy after the end of the conflict, he was a member of the American troops that were in the Bikini Atoll during the nuclear tests of 1946. He was decorated for his demonstrated courage in combat and recognized with other merits by brotherhoods and civil organizations.

In 1951 he studied military art at the then Pine Camp Academy in New York, graduating as part of the Second Special Unit and remaining in that military corps until 1954. That year he began to work in the civilian sector until he returned to Cuba in 1960 and settled in Havana.

Self-taught and possessing a vast culture, he met Pablo Ruiz Picasso in France, to whom he was introduced by a mutual friend of both and also a Cuban painter, Wilfredo Lam Castilla, who at that time resided in the French capital and visited him frequently. His friendship with the painter of “La Jungla” lasted until the latter's death.

Once back in Cuba, Sainz maintained friendly relations with the cultural world of Havana, especially with the painter and poet Andrés Herrera Hernández, who frequently visited him at his residence in the peripheral district of Habana Nueva, Guanabacoa. Sainz died in 2010.

[1] Sainz insisted that his original surname was Sáenz, but that his military documentation, including his identification, were mistyped when legalizing his immigration status in the United States of America and he did not pay much attention to the matter.