Background
Cugat was born in Barcelona in 1893 and was the older brother of bandleader Xavier Cugat.
Cugat was born in Barcelona in 1893 and was the older brother of bandleader Xavier Cugat.
Cugat studied at the academy at Rheims, and then in Paris at the Ecole des Beaux Arts.
The Cugat family emigrated to Cuba in 1903. He became known as a portrait painter in France, South America and Cuba before coming to the United States. Cugat created distinctive, stylized theatre cards for several opera personalities in the period 1915–1918 including Lucien Muratore, Rosa Raisa and Giacomo Rimini.
These visually dramatic posters were the result of Cugat having been discovered by Cleofonte Campannini in Chicago.
Cugat came to the general director of the opera asking for the commission to paint poster portraits of the Chicago Opera Association stars. He continued in this endeavor, painting Nellie Melba, as well.
In the early 1920s Cugat continued his artistic career in New York City. Cugat moved to Hollywood in 1925.
Foreign many years, Cugat was a designer in Hollywood for Douglas Fairbanks and had a 1942 show in New York, well after his famous work for The Great Gatsby.
He was credited for technical work on sixty-eight Hollywood films. He died in Westport, Connecticut, on July 13, 1981, aged 88. Murtore, Raisa and Rimini Theatre Cards - 1915–1917 Untitled illustration of woman with candle and dandy, n.d., circa 1915–1917 Celestial Eyes - A painting for the cover of The Great Gatsby, by F. "George Gershwin" (An American in Paris) - c.
1928, Etching.
Technicolor Color Consultant for the John Ford/John Wayne film The Quiet Manitoba Technicolor Color Consultant for the 1955 movie Three for the Show "French Quarter, New Orleans" landscape painting, n.d. "Bridgetoan Harbor, Barbados" landscape painting, n.d.