Soli\u00f1o was moved the first time he saw Naranjo among boxes in this new place in northwest Miami. Lauten had come to help Naranjo get back on his feet and had asked a documentarian for help.<\/p>\n
![\"Cuban](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/MIA_2026-05-15AD0272artistOrlandoGonzalezNaranjo_1.JPG\" "\\"MIA_2026-05-15AD0272artistOrlandoGonzalezNaranjo_1.JPG\\"")
Cuban filmmaker Jorge Soli\u00f1o speaks with self-taught painter Orlando Gonz\u00e1lez Naranjo, born in Cuba and based in Miami, while visiting Naranjo at his home studio on May 15, 2026, in Miami , Florida. PHOTO BY AL DIAZ adiaz@miamiherald.com <\/p>\n
\u201cHe always had many plans and life played a dirty trick on him, from bad advice, from ignorance, from whatever,\u201d Soli\u00f1o says, about what becomes the essence of the documentary, summed up in the John Lennon quote the filmmaker chooses as an epigraph: \u201cLife is what happens to you while you\u2019re busy making other plans.\u201d<\/p>\n
Naranjo is known for capturing with special sensitivity the beauty of the Cuban woman, like the harlequin from his \u201cblue period,\u201d because his work, full of color like the Calabazar de Sagua countryside where he was born, sometimes turns monochrome. His signature style presents women with sad, slightly drooping eyes that sometimes shed a tear.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe paintings were kind of piled up and those faces were looking at me saying: what are you going to do about us? How can you help us? It was as if they were all demanding something from me,\u201d Soli\u00f1o remembers, and when Naranjo couldn\u2019t paint because of pain he would bring him a medicine that relieved him.<\/p>\n
An atypical Cuban<\/p>\n
Naranjo grew up in extreme poverty in pre-Castro Cuba, living in a boh\u00edo, a shack, with a dirt floor. There were days he couldn\u2019t go to school because he had no lunch to take or shoes to wear. He earned five cents carrying lunch to the workers of the Purio central. He ran errands for his teacher, who made the first underwear he ever wore when he was in fourth grade, the last year he attended school.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn 1953 it was my teacher who gave me my first book, \u201cCamino del saber\u201d (The Path of Knowledge),\u201d says Naranjo. He sometimes gets tongue-tied remembering an episode of his life, but then picking it up again in lavish detail, even naming those involved.<\/p>\n
He never had store-bought toys, only the ones his father made for him. Nor colored pencils and certainly no brushes, but they always sent him to draw with chalk on the blackboard, and he won several writing contests.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy first poem was published in the newspaper El Comercio of Cienfuegos; I was 14 or 15 years old,\u201d says Naranjo, who attributes his artistic abilities to curiosity. \u201cIt\u2019s inside you. As a child I was crazy running around everywhere; I loved going to town.\u201d<\/p>\n
Perhaps the roots of a self-taught artist like him lie in remembering the scene of his grandfather \u2014 who was nearly blind from cataracts and there was no money for surgery \u2014 sitting on a stool at the doorway of the boh\u00edo, enjoying the cool air before the midday sun arrived.<\/p>\n
\u201cSometimes it makes me sad because I used to play a lot of tricks on him, I\u2019d move his things so he couldn\u2019t find them, but I also think I was the only one who noticed him because he was very lonely,\u201d he recalls.<\/p>\n
Naranjo loves to talk about the six bridges Calabazar de Sagua had, about his church, about the bandstand, and about the first time he saw the four-year-old girl who would later become his wife.<\/p>\n
\u201cI grabbed her in the street and kissed her,\u201d he says, clarifying that he was later punished.<\/p>\n
![\"Self-taught](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/MIA_2026-05-15AD0250artistOrlandoGonzalezNaranjoF2.JPG\" "\\"MIA_2026-05-15AD0250artistOrlandoGonzalezNaranjoF2.JPG\\"")
Naranjo\u2019s characters, inspired by the men and women of the Cuban countryside, bear the signature mark of large, drooping eyes. Al Diaz adiaz@miamiherald.com <\/p>\n
Naranjo arrived in Havana at 18 and began his career as a designer and draughtsman on projects across the island. He worked in the workshops of the El Encanto store, which was the most luxurious in Cuba. He also did the interior decoration of the Hotel Capri in Vedado and the Hotel Ricardo (now Vueltabajo) in downtown Pinar del R\u00edo. When he designed the Gran Hotel Santa Clara facing Parque Vidal, he hung one of his own paintings on every floor by the elevators.<\/p>\n
His desire to see the world, to travel and reach the pyramids of Egypt\u2014the impulse that led him into exile in 1984\u2014was not fulfilled. The painter has never seen New York, but he did live in Tampa for six years, which he finds quieter and friendlier than Miami.<\/p>\n
Naranjo has exhibited in countless shows in galleries in Miami and Coral Gables, and in group exhibitions in Havana and the United States. At the same time he carries that air of the marginalized artist that comes from spending two decades without a determined legal status, as we learn in the documentary.<\/p>\n
![\"Self-taught](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/MIA_2026-05-15AD0378artistOrlandoGonz\u00c3\u00a1lezNaranjo.JPG\" "\\"MIA_2026-05-15AD0378artistOrlandoGonz\u00c3\u00a1lezNaranjo.JPG\\"")
The painter Orlando Gonz\u00e1lez Naranjo began signing his works on the back with the image of a large eye\u2014which sometimes sheds a tear\u2014after several people began making copies of his paintings in Miami. PHOTO BY AL DIAZ adiaz@miamiherald.com <\/p>\n
His work was the subject of many forgeries, but Naranjo showed them grace. At one point, he counted five different forgers, he said with a certain amount of pride. Someone informed Naranjo about a particular forger, but the man was so skinny, and he told Naranjo that his mother had died. Naranjo responded: \u201cI\u2019m not going to ask him for a cent.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHumanity was born with me, just as painting was born with me,\u201d Naranjo says. Since then, he signs his paintings on the back with a huge eye that sometimes cries. Around it, he puts phrases from the news, from the events of the moment, because \u201cthe artist is a witness of his time,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
The documentary Naranjo is presented on Friday, May 22, 7 p.m., at Koubek Center, 2705 SW 3 St. Free admission and parking. Confirm attendance at https:\/\/miamifilmfestival.com\/program\/event\/naranjo\/<\/p>\n