Isla Judia

This is "Isla Judia", circa 1981, watercolor on 180 weight paper, done while I was a student at the University of Washington School of Art.

It honors Cubans of Jewish ancestry. While legend has it that the first Jews arrived with the early Spanish settlers, and Jews have always migrated to Cuba in the past, the bulk of the Jewish migration to Cuba was in the early 20th century, as they escaped persecution of Jews from the Ottoman empire in the early 1920s, and later from Europeans before and during the Second World War, with immigrants arriving mostly from Germany and Poland. By 1959 there were 15,000 Jews in Havana alone, and there were five active synagogues in the city.

After the brutal Communist takeover, nearly all Cuban Jews escaped, and now estimates show only about 1500 Jewish Cubans left on the island.

"Isla Judia (Jewish Island)"
1981 Watercolor on paper by F. Lennox Campello

This is the preparatory sketch for the final work as I did 3-4 prep watercolors before doing a large painting.