Enrique Crucet was born in Havana on July 12, 1895. His academic training was quite comprehensive, as he studied painting at the Centro Gallego in Havana (1912), the Academia de San Alejandro, and later at the Real Academia de San Fernando in Madrid. He also lived for a time in Barcelona, ​​inspired by his interest in interacting with diverse currents of real art, beyond the strictly theoretical and technical.

It must be said that Crucet’s style was shaped primarily at the San Fernando Academy, although in Cuba he had acquired the necessary mastery of the techniques he would later employ. At this academy, he had as teachers prominent figures in the teaching of fine art in Spain, such as Cecilio Plá, Joaquín Sorolla, Julio Blanco, and Julio Romero de Torres, among others, who contributed to shaping his conception of art and of each painting in particular.

In 1918, he returned to Cuba and embarked on an intense period of creativity that lasted until approximately 1920, the year in which he returned to Madrid, where he exhibited these paintings of island motifs, which were very well received in the former metropolis. He was already a renowned painter who would contribute to the internationalization of Cuban culture, still in its infancy, through the value of his work itself, but also through the Cuban character of the themes he selected, both in content and form.

In this sense, the 19th-century independence struggles were frequent sources of inspiration for Enrique Crucet, both emblematic sites and events, as well as historical figures who played a key role in them. In this regard, the series “La Ruta de Martí” (The Route of Martí) and “Por la ruta de la herida” (On the Route of the Invasion) stand out, both with profound patriotic content. Crucet also created several still lifes that stand out for their treatment of color and evoke the vernacular in the landscape.

In 1952, he presented an exhibition of his work in New York and two years later received First Prize at the 7th National Salon of Cuba for his painting Viñales, a region that would spark the interest of several Cuban visual artists. A selection of his work can be seen at the Bacardí Museum, including Sierra de la Gran Piedra, La Gran Piedra, Sunny Morning in the Sierra, La Palma en la Sierra, El Escambray, Belic in Las Coloradas, Fog in the Peaks, and The Sierra from La Gran Piedra.