Queridos
Opening June 24
Through August 1, 2025

Atrium Entrance
Tyler School of Art and Architecture
Norris St. Between 12th and 13th Streets
Temple University, Philadelphia

Tyler School of Art and Architecture, Temple University, and Temple University Rome Campus are pleased to present Anita Guerra’s exhibition Queridos, to open on Tuesday, June 24, from 5-7 pm, in the Atrium of the Tyler building. The display will feature paintings, drawings, prints, vintage photographs, a video interview of her mother, Josefina Recio, and a documentary film of the artist’s father, Cuban architect Juan Ignacio Guerra, co-produced by the artist and Alberto Nappi.

Queridos is the typical Spanish salutation on letters, such as those written during her family’s year-long separation in 1961 during their exodus from Castro´s Revolution in Cuba. The artist and her six siblings were abruptly moved from their home in Havana to St. Vincent’s and Mother Cabrini orphanages in Philadelphia. This exhibition Queridos is the sequel to Anita Guerra’s 2020 exhibition Tres Patrias in Rome, and her 2016 exhibition Mi Cuba, La Mia Italia at the Casa de la Obra Pia in Old Havana, based on the illustrated memoir of the same title, which traces her journey from an idyllic childhood in Havana to Philadelphia, and to a life as an artist and professor in Rome. Through monotypes printed on Cuban special editions commemorating Fidel Castro’s death, hypothetical chronological superimpositions of the artist’s siblings and “adopted” cousin, and various geographical, political, and generational realities through paintings, watercolors, embroideries, writings, letters, and artifacts, the artist recounts her story as she recorded it from memory, from photographs and in her several returns to Cuba from 2015-2020.

A memoir, a missing link in Cuban Architectural history, an homage to her family and to her traditions, her life in Philadelphia and Rome, and her tribute to Temple University, where she received her undergraduate and MFA degrees in painting, this exhibition is a testament to the power of art as a conduit between the historical and the personal, the past and the present.

For additional information: @anitaguerraroma; [click-for-email], https://www.anitaguerra.com