The bustling and elegant Paseo Avenue, in Havana’s Vedado neighborhood –a place famous for its magnificent mansions- is home to a singular museum that treasures the work of Servando Cabrera Moreno (Havana 1923-1981), a memorial site specially dedicated to the memory of an artist whose departure from this world occurred quite soon.

The exhibit includes a wide collection of his memorable paintings and drawings, while the house recreates the intimate life of Mr. Cabrera, with photographs of relatives and friends, fine pieces of furniture, porcelain, travel mementos and other items, everything put together in a genuine Cuban style.

Some of the painter’s belongings, a small gallery of works created by other Cuban artists, plus a compilation of Cuba’s decorative and popular arts –as well as from other parts of the world- are displayed in this museum, coupled with scores of keepsakes Mr. Cabrera bought or was presented with in his trips around the globe.

As Cuban essayist and critic Graziella Pogolotti once put it, “Servando Cabrera Moreno is the isolated artist of Cuba’s fine arts, a man who doesn’t fit in the pre-established layouts of generations and schools, who walked through all of them like a lonesome hiker, heeding nothing but the demands of his artistic consciousness.”

Thus, those who pause and take a long look at the museum’s halls could be in a position to make a fair judgment. The drawings and paintings hold the key to understanding and enjoying Mr. Cabrera’s artistic creation –academic, abstractionism, expressionism- that is thoroughly culled in topics as follows: Drawings, Servando in Three Times, Omens, Erotic Art (1974-1979) and Erotic Art (1981).

There you’ll find his fine drawings of delicate female faces, robust peasants and Cuban militiamen; naked torsos and bodies that get tangled up and tend to confuse, many of them shaped as vegetables, and the awesome collection of erotic paintings, splayed in large-scale canvasses and brimming with light, color and intense sensuality.

Hemmed in by shrubs and trees, the small palace –carefully restored and equipped with high-tech museum techniques- is also outfitted with a library and archive specialized in the art, the works and the life of the artist. The Garden of Statues, featuring major pieces of some of the finest Cuban artists, is decked out against a huge mural of Marta Arjona, the late Cuban ceramist and curator.

Bent on preserving and highlighting the country’s artistic collective memory, the Servando Cabrera Moreno Museum opens up a new space that enriches the spiritual life of the Cuban people and troves of visitors from other parts of the planet eager to take a closer glimpse at the cultural legacy the island nation’s capital cherishes so dearly.