Pedro Pablo Oliva was born in Pinar del Rio, Cuba, in 1949. He graduated from the Escuela de Artes Plásticas in 1970 and from the Escuela Provincial de Arte de Pinar del Rio in 1964. Since 1974, Oliva has had individual and collective exhibitions in Cuba as well as internationally. His works can be seen at the National Museum of Fine Arts of Cuba and in collections in Canada, France, Italy, Spain, Brazil, Switzerland, Mexico, Germany and United States. In 1998 Oliva founded and funded the House-Workshop of Pedro Pablo Oliva in Pinar del Río, with the aim of promoting the art, literature and culture of his native province. He has been officially recognized by several institutions in Cuba. Oliva belongs to the National Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (UNEAC the National Council and the International Association of Plastic Arts, AIAP). In 2011 he was dismissed by the Cuban government as a delegate to the Assembly of the Popular Power in the province of Pinar del Río. The dismissal was motivated by the publication of Oliva’s letter that was critical of the Cuban government in the blog of the cyberactivist Yoani Sánchez and by the statements that he made to the journalist Edmundo García in his program La Tarde Se Mueve (The Afternoon Moves) on a Miami, United States.
