PRESERVING CUBA
Over the centuries, artists have regularly documented how places look before change intervenes. More pro-actively, plein air painters often use their creations to highlight the need to conserve land; a fine example is Southern California’s Portuguese Bend artist colony, which scared off the bulldozers by selling their scenic paintings on behalf of the Palos Verdes Peninsula Land Conservancy. Farther south, many artists have painted the Crystal Cove near Laguna Beach to underscore the necessity of preserving this beauty spot; farther north, the Marin Agricultural Land Trust works with plein airists to record and fundraise. But we can cite cases of failure, too: Ernest Lawson’s early 20th-century scenes of upper Manhattan depict a verdant landscape subsequently obliterated by overdevelopment and highways. A rare opportunity now presents itself in Cuba. When we learned…