Felipe Jesus Consalvos

1891-1960

Born outside Havana in 1891, Cuban-American artist Felipe Consalvos emigrated to Miami around 1920, eventually settling in New York and finally Philadelphia, where he died sometime in the 1950’s or 1960’s. A self-appointed “artist, healer, and man,” Consalvos worked for much of his life as a cigar roller, and he extrapolated the vernacular tradition of cigar band collage to a highly sophisticated, inimitable practice. His obsessive body of work—approximately 800 surviving collages on paper, found photographs, musical instruments, furniture, and other unexpected surfaces - were all discovered in 1983 at a West Philadelphia garage sale.  Consalvos' playful and often subversively political work used appropriated cigar bands and cigar box paper, along with magazine images, family photographs, postage stamps, and cut-up money. Following extensive conservation work, Consalvos' work was first exhibited in a solo show in 2004 at Fleisher/Ollman Gallery in Philadelphia. - Fleisher/Ollman Gallery

Consalvos’ socio-political satire, impulsive surprises, poetry, and mystical and surprising combinations, makes his work amongst my favorites in my collection.  His work consistently brings my eye back to discovering something I missed on previous encounters.