Born 1891, Cuba
Died c. 1960
Lived and worked in Miami, New York and Philadelphia
Born outside Havana in 1891, this recently rediscovered Cuban-American artist 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” (described by Roberta Smith as a “self-starting modernist... on a par with... greats like Henry Darger, Martin Ramirez, and James Castle”), 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 750 surviving collages on paper, found photographs, musical instruments, furniture, and other unexpected surfaces, all discovered in 1980 at a West Philadelphia garage sale—merges the biting socio-political satire and absurdist impulse of Dadaists like Kurt Schwitters and Max Ernst with the abstruse mysticism of Joseph Cornell and Jess. Consalvos likewise parallels and prefigures certain contemporaneous developments in Surrealist, Futurist, and Pop collage, design, and even poetry. By highlighting his multifaceted approach to collage as sculpture, literature, revolution, and worship, we intend to rethread a stray strand, to tie a keen eye to its more famous confederates and include a forgotten voice within the context of the development of 20th-century American art.
SOLO SHOWS
2012
Exploded Whims, Fleisher/Ollman Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
2010
Felipe Jesus Consalvos, Andrew Edlin Gallery, New York, NY
2007
More Colossal Greatness, Fleisher/Ollman Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
2004
Constructing Images, Fleisher/Ollman Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
GROUP SHOWS
2020
Popular Painters & Other Visionaries, curated by Rodrigo Moura, El Museo del Barrio, New York, NY
An Alternative Canon: Art Dealers Collecting Outsider Art, curated by Paul Laster, Andrew Edlin Gallery, New York, NY
2019
We Shall Make America Wonder, Andrew Edlin Gallery, New York, NY
2016
Measurably Long Kool, Fleisher/Ollman, Philadelphia, PA
The Kunsthal of Everything, Exhibition #6, Kunsthal Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands
2014
Enigma Rapt in Mysteries: American Art Without Epoch, Cavin-Morris Gallery, New York, NY
2013
Eugene Von Bruenchenhein, Felipe Jesus Consalvos, Paul Lee, Adams and Ollman, Portland, OR
2012
Museum of Everything, Exhibition #1.1, Chalet Society, Paris, FR
60/60, Fleisher/Ollman, Philadelphia, PA
Caribbean: Crossroads of the World, El Museo del Barrio, New York, NY (Cat.)
2011
Remix: Selections from the International Collage Center, The Samek Art Gallery, Bucknell University, Lewisburg, PA
Off Camera, Fleisher/Ollman Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
The Medicine Bag, Maccarone Gallery, New York, NY
Four Decades, Fleisher/Ollman Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
2009
About Face: A compilation, Edward Thorp Gallery, New York, NY
2008
Messages and Magic: 100 Years of Collage and Assemblage in American Art, John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Sheboygan, WI
2007
Collage, Russell Bowman Art Advisory, Chicago, IL
2006
Parallel Visions II, Galerie St. Etienne, New York, NY
Rock Paper Scissors: American Collage Now, Fleisher/Ollman Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
The American Antiques Show, Fleisher/Ollman Gallery, New York, NY
2005
Art 36 Basel, Fleisher/Ollman Gallery, Basel, Switzerland
Words in Pictures, Adam Baumgold Gallery, New York, NY
The American Antiques Show, Fleisher/Ollman Gallery, New York, NY
2004
Fabulous Histories: Indigenous Anomalies in American Art, Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA
The American Antiques Show, Fleisher/Ollman Gallery, New York, NY
PUBLICATIONS
2006
Gomez, Edward. Folk Art Magazine, September
Newhall, Edith. "Collage Hot Again." Philadelphia Inquirer, March 17
Smith, Roberta. "Red, White and Blue Americana Atop a Cultural Rainbow." New York Times, Jan, p. E33.
2005
Glueck, Grace. "Reminders of America's Many Pasts." New York Times, Jan, p. 33.
Greaves, Brendan. "Cigarmaker, Creator, Healer, & Man: The Artwork of Felipe Jesus Consalvos."
Catalogue essay, Fleisher/Ollman Gallery
2004
Fallon, Roberta. "Rittenhouse Square Deal." Philadelphia Weekly, Nov
Sozanski, Edward J. "Cigar Bands, in His Hands, Became Art." Philadelphia Inquirer, Nov, p. 32.
COLLECTIONS
American Folk Art Museum, New York, NY
Harvard Art Museums, Boston, MA
High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA
John Michael Kohler Art Center, Sheboygan, WI
Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA
The Museum of Everything, London, UK