Our Story

After receiving her MFA in ceramics in Mexico, Peggy moved to Santa Fe, NM where she worked as a potter for over 30 years. In 1984, she met Stuart who was a working artist at the time. Together they went on a five-week road trip down the coast of Mexico as far as Zihuatenejo and then inland to the Day of the Dead celebration in Patzcuaro, Michoacán. To be at this crafts market, during the Day of the Dead, with an empty pick-up truck, was a dream come true. Needless to say, they filled the truck. When they got back to Santa Fe, not wanting to make the impossible decision of who got what, they decided to get a house together. A year later they were married.

Stuart grew up in Cuba, his parents having emigrated there from Eastern Europe in the late 1920's.  In September of 1960, at the age of twelve, Stuart and his parents left Cuba for New York City.  Like many recent arrivals, he worked hard to fully assimilate himself into his new life in New York.  It was not until 1995, as the Director of the Museum of Fine Arts in Santa Fe, NM that he met Cuban photographer, Marta Maria Perez Bravo, who encouraged him to return to Cuba because "you are so Cuban!"  At Marta's invitation, he attended the Havana Biennial in 1997, a trip that would forever change his life.

A few years later, the Clinton administration began to allow what was called, People to People cultural trips to Cuba. Peggy and Stuart organized and led two trips to Cuba under the auspices of the Museum of New Mexico Foundation, in 1999 and 2000. The ability to lead People to People trips ended in 2001. 

Over the next decade, Peggy and Stuart traveled independently to Cuba several times, where they met many of the artists who are now part of Artes de Cuba. During a trip in 2009 to the Havana Biennial, at the invitation of the Ministry of Culture, Stuart and Peggy were introduced to curator, Juan Delgado Calzadilla (“Juanito”), who had just mounted a huge show for the Biennial. As a result of that visit, Juanito and Stuart brought the work of forty contemporary Cuban artists to the National Hispanic Cultural Center in Albuquerque in the fall of 2009.  According to Juanito, it was the largest exhibit of contemporary Cuban art since the exhibit, Modern Cuban Painters at MoMA in 1944.

In 2011, Stuart became the President & CEO of the Museum of Latin American Art in Long Beach, CA. During his tenure there, he mounted major exhibits for two important Cuban artists, Roberto Fabelo in 2014 and Esterio Segura in 2015. For both artists, it was their first one-person museum show in the US.  At the same time, Peggy, again, began leading trips to Cuba for various organizations and museums.  Beginning in the winter of 2012, to date she has led over 35 trips to Cuba where her relationships with the artists have continued to grow.  

For both Peggy and Stuart, the gallery is much more than an exhibit space.  It is a coming together of the years of their experiences and friendships with the artists seen at Artes de Cuba.  It is a coming together of their deep regard for the Cuban people and their enormous talent, perseverance, sense of humor and unbridled spirit.  Most importantly, it is an opportunity to share all of this, and more, with Santa Fe and beyond.