10/07/2026
Happy 118th Birthday to our favorite Cuban-American artist, Mario Sanchez 🎂!
Sanchez, the son of Cuban immigrants was born on October 7, 1908, in a two-story house on the corner of Louisa and Duval Streets in the Barrio Gato section of Key West. He is among this country’s finest and most-recognized folk artists. In hundreds of intricately painted wood carvings created in a lifelong labor of love, Sanchez has provided a better history of Key West in the first part of the 20th century than any annals or academic texts.
His bas-relief carvings, or intaglios, are a visual feast filled with the music, smells and passion of Gato’s Village, the Cuban-American community of Key West where Sanchez spent much of his life. During his more than 70-year career, Sanchez developed his own style while mastering more traditional skills. Working in cedar wood and white pine, the artist first sketched the scene onto a paper bag, and then used carbon paper to transfer the image to the wooden canvas.
Of his work, Sanchez adopted as his motto: ‘Se que mi modesto arte no es bueno, pero gusta,’ or ‘I know my modest art isn’t good, but it pleases.’
KWAHS Collection 0000.00.1183
