Miguel Melero Rodríguez, born in Havana, was a prolific artist who not only specialized in portraiture but also recreated still lifes, as well as historical, religious, and mythological subjects. He also left behind small easel paintings that allow us to reconstruct a very important aspect of his pictorial work and of nineteenth-century island art more broadly. His teachers included Frederic Mialhe and Hércules Morelli.

By the time he was just over thirty, he had already traveled to Spain, France, and Italy, which brought him into contact with the vibrant currents of European art, where mythological themes of Greek and Latin origin continued to occupy a prominent place since the Renaissance. This is reflected, for example, in “The Rape of Dejanira by the Centaur Nessus,” a piece still preserved at the Academy of St. Alexander.

However, religious—Catholic—themes occupied a fundamental space in his work, which may be associated not only with his vocation but also with the fact that ecclesiastical institutions constituted one of the main art markets at the time. Among the titles he conceived in this vein are “The Last Judgment”—a large piece located on the main altar of the Colón Cemetery Chapel—”Jesus and Margaret of Alcorque,” and “Saint Teresa of Jesus.”

The figure of Christopher Columbus inspired many of his pieces, including “Columbus at the Council of Salamanca” and even a sculpture of the Discoverer of America, located in the park that bears his name. Few of Melero Rodríguez’s sculptures have survived to this day, however, one of José A. Cortina, erected on his tomb in the Columbus Necropolis, has survived.

Last but not least, it is essential to briefly review this artist’s teaching work. He was initially a drawing teacher at the Colegio El Salvador, directed by the distinguished philosopher José de la Luz y Caballero. Later, he became director of the San Alejandro Academy of Fine Arts—the first Cuban to head the institution—where he implemented a series of reforms, the most important of which was allowing women into its classrooms as early as 1878. His disciples included Arburu Morell and Armando García Menocal.