El Bobo and Eduardo Abela
Apprentice of tobacconist and caricaturist in San Antonio de los Baños. Painter of gipsies in Granada. Member of the Retail Group in Havana and author of ‘’La Comparsa’’, in Paris, Creator of El Bobo during Machado’s dictatoship and shortly after Director of Free Study of Painting and Sculpture and Diplomat, Eduardo Abela created a plastic world of poetic imagination. Today we approach the story of ‘’El Bobo de Abela’’.
‘’El Bobo’’ character comes from the Cuban colonial era. In 1895, a weekly saw the light publishing articles as ‘’El Bobo de Batabanó’’ or ‘’El Bobo de la Yuca’’. The ariguanabense carried out a total renovation in the scenic composition of the character and formed the final appearance of it. The artist conceived the purpose of making such an abstract fixed rate that does not come to resemble anyone in particular. Thus he began to live that figure, baptized soon after by the public with the name ‘’El Bobo’’. The man's face was the upper part of a woman's torso, like a papaya fruit. This picaresque character emerged in 1926.
’’El Bobo’’ was an icon of the republican caricature in Cuba. Convinced of the need to provide this whistle-blower of the machadista regime with two other characters, Eduardo Abela created ‘’El Profesor’’ and ‘’El Ahijado’’ as a complement. It must be someone as fool as ‘’El Bobo’’ and ignorant of the real world. Disappointed and exhausted from his inquiry, he entered a Chinese fonda and found his friend ‘’El Profesor’’. Meanwhile ‘’El Ahijado’’ was a child, an alleged descendent of ‘’El Bobo’’.
Eduardo Abela traveled to Italy in 1934 to serve on the cuban consulate in Milan. His caricatures reflected the exhaustion of the character, so the author felt that ‘’El Bobo’’ was dying. In 1941, he tried to revive him in the Weekly ‘’El Bobo’’. Once again he realized that its scope was unrecoverable and painting it revealed its time, its conflicts and those of its fellowcitizens, and itself.
