Edel Rodríguez

Edel Rodriguez was born in 1971 in Havana, Cuba. He received a B.F.A. in Painting from Pratt Institute in 1994 and an M.F.A. from Hunter College in 1998. Using a variety of materials, his work ranges from conceptual to portraiture and landscape. His work has been featured in Print's 1998 New Visual Artists Annual and on the cover of the 2004 Communication Arts Illustration Annual. It has also been regularly selected to appear in the pages of Communication Arts, American Illustration, Society of Publication Designers, and The Society of Illustrators Annuals. He is also the recipient of both a Gold and a Silver Medal for editorial illustration from the Society of Illustrators. He has illustrated three children's books, "Mama does the Mambo", "Oye Celia", a biopic about Celia Cruz, and "Float Like a Butterfly", a story about Cassius Clay. A stamp he created for the United States Postal Service was released in the Summer of 2005. Edel's artwork is in the collections of a variety of institutions, including the Smithsonian in Washington D.C., as well as in the private collections of a variety of writers, actors, designers, businessmen, and political figures.Partial Client List: The New Yorker, Time Magazine, MTV, Pepsi Inc., U.S. Postal Service, Spot Design, Nike Inc., WBMG, Rolling Stone, Texas Monthly, Gentleman's Quarterly, Playboy, Reader's Digest, National Geographic Traveler, Little Brown and Co., The New York Times, Galison Books, University of Chicago Press, The New Republic, Hyperion Books, New York Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, Henry Holt Books, Esquire magazine, Conde Naste Traveler, The Washington Post, David Morris Design, Fortune Magazine, Billboard Magazine, Golf Digest, The Progressive, Los Angeles Times, McGraw-Hill, The Nation, Vibe Magazine

When Fidel Castro ceded power to his brother last week, the editors of Time Magazine’s website approached Edel Rodriguez about publishing a series of his drawings as a visual essay. Rodriguez left Cuba in 1980, but continues to capture Cuban life in his artwork. The resulting illustration essay is entitled A Vision of Cuba.