Academia Nacional de Bellas Artes San Alejandro

The school was founded with the support of the Economic Society of Friends of the Country and the General Intendant of the Treasury and was founded under the direction of the French artist Jean Baptiste Vermay (1784–1833). The school was named after Don Alejandro Ramírez, general superintendent and director of the Royal Economic Society of Friends of the Country. It is the educational center with the largest number of years building the teaching on the lands of Latin America, preceded only by the University of Havana. It turned-from a number of changes that occurred in Spain in the 19th century and not surprisingly was felt in the colonies, in the climate of the Constitution of Cádiz of 1812 and enlightened absolutism. It was established by the Royal Patriotic Society and the Royal Consulate of Havana, as the Free School of Drawing and Painting. Its first director, Juan Bautista Vermay, who arrived in Cuba when the Bonaparte empire collapsed, when he was 31 years old. ==Administration==

The internal life at San Alejandro is governed by the Board of Directors who in turn appoints the Technical Council, who in turn run the different departments that make up the teaching faculty. The Board of Directors consists of the Director and Deputy Director and the Secretaries Speciality Teaching, Education, Health Care-Economic, Business and Education. The Technical Board, in turn, is the body responsible for representing the teaching faculty to the Board of Directors. It consists of all deans of each departments. These are the Deans of Drawing, Painting, Engraving, Sculpture, Ceramics, Jewelry, Graphic Arts and Theoretical-Cultural Teachings. San Alejandro has exchanges with many schools abroad, including in the UK The Cardinal Wiseman Catholic School. Over the past three years, three exchanges have taken place. The exchanges consisted of the students from Wiseman travelling to Cuba in February, and the Cuban students coming to London in June. ==Directors==

• Nela Arias-Misson (1915–2015), painter and sculptor • Belkis Ayón (1967–1999) • José Bedia Valdés (born 1959), painter • Tania Bruguera (born 1968) • Manuel Carbonell (1918–2011), sculptor • Pablo Borges Delgado • Juan Roberto Diago Durruthy (born 1971), painter • Antonia Eiriz (1929–1995), painter • Eberto Escobedo Lazo • Agustín Fernández