CESAR SANTALO-BIO
César Santaló was born in Baltimore, Maryland in 1970. At the age of eight he moved to Miami, FL. From a very young age, César has shown to be passionate about art and its creation. By the age of sixteen, he had won many prestigious national art awards and scholarships; including regional and national winner of the Scholastic Art Awards. That same year, the young artist was awarded the Dante Fascell Congressional Art Award and had his work exhibited in the U.S. Capitol, in Washington, D.C. He later received the Art Innovations National Winner at the college level.
As a student, César learned from great masters such as Felix Ramos, Ricardo Irisari, Felix Decosio and Manolo Canovacas. César would later attend Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY, where he would receive his Bachelors Degree in Drawing and Painting. During his time in New York he taught at Pratt Institute’s Saturday Art School.
After graduation, the artist was offered a position with a prestigious Graphic Design firm as a Graphic Artist/Illustrator. He was able to work for such clients as Burger King, American Express and Esso. He later worked for Expert Software where he was Senior Artist and Designer working on such products as Bicycle Brand Software, McDonaldland and Sega. César was responsible for revamping of the look for Bicycle products which led the sales per month to increase an average of 300%. His packages have sold well into the tens of millions.
César then took his talents to the creators of Canvas Software; competitors of Photoshop and Illustrator where he was also Senior Artist. He was also instrumental in designing the features and functions of the program. He continues to assist them in many of their illustration needs.
Following his experience with Canvas, César began working for Univision Network where he is Senior Artist. Univision is the largest Spanish-language television network in the world, where he has also worked for other shows such as Sábado Gigante, Despierta America, World Cup and Network News just to name a few. He is also a professor of Art at the University of Miami, where he has been teaching now for over 8 years and where César also received his Masters of Fine Art.
His illustrations, designs and paintings have been published in magazines and periodicals from New York to Tokyo. Several of them are in collection at the Library of Congress. He has won Best of Show at the Lowe Art Museum, 2003(Juror: Bernice Steinbaum). In 2004, he received the Adobe Innovations Award from the University of Miami and won best of show “Imagination”, Juried Exhibition of Still, Kinetic and Interactive Fine Art. In 2005, one of his collages was purchased by the State Department of Florida, by Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University. That same year he had his first one man show which was featured on the internationally televised show, Despierta América, and on local television, Nuestro Orgullo. In January 2006, he was featured as the front page story for the Miami Herald’s Tropical Life magazine. He was also commissioned to illustrate the poster for CubaNostalgia in 2006, 2009 and 2012.
He is currently designing his first outdoor sculpture for Palmetto Bay’s Art in Public Places, which is also the first in this city’s history. His collage was featured as the signature look for Premios Juventud 2009 for Univision Network. He was also chosen as one of the artists to paint a 10’ tall guitar for Miami’s Art in Public Places “Miami’s Gibson Guitar Town”. Later in 2010 his illustration was chosen for Univision’s FIFA World Cup poster.
In the near future, César plans to continue working on outdoor collages and sculptures that involve mosaic tiles and found objects. In the coming year, he is traveling to Europe to hand deliver a collage of Saint Marcellin Champagnat to the Vatican and to Champagnat’s birth place in France. He, his wife, and their three beautiful children, reside in South Miami. www.cesarsantalo.com
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