Resolution 160-2005
Mavor Dixie M. Soehar
Resolution No. 160_2005
A RESOLUTION OF THE BOARD OF COUNTY
COMMISSIONERS OF MONROE COUNTY IN
RECOGNITION OF THE LATE MARIO SANCHEZ
WHEREAS, Mario Sanchez, a Key West folk artist and national treasure, well
known for his colorful and intricate woodcarvings depicting Key West street scenes,
passed away on April 21, 2005~ and
WHEREAS, Mario Sanchez began his career in art by selling his artwork in barber
shops, eventually adopted the shade of a downtown sapodilla tree as his studio, and often
purloined implements from his wife Rosa's kitchen to execute his works~ and
WHEREAS, Mario Sanchez preserved his memories of a culturally diverse
community by peopling his street scenes with cigar rollers, street vendors, fishermen, and a
variety of other people common to Key West, including Cuban, Afro-Cuban, Bahamian,
Afro-Bahamian, Chinese, Italian and Jewish immigrants, often with a humorous undertone~
and
WHEREAS, Mario Sanchez received a Florida Folk Heritage Award in 1991, in
1996 was acclaimed by the national magazine Folk Art as the most important Cuban-
American Folk Artist of the Twentieth Century, was collected by top museums around the
country, was featured in Cary Grant's films, and now has one of the largest collections of
his work ever compiled displayed by the Key West Museum of Art and History at the
Custom House~ and
WHEREAS, Mario Sanchez was born in 1908, on the second floor of his family's
bodega, a grocery store, at the comer of Duval and Louisa Streets, spent the early years of
his marriage to Rosa in Tampa, and returned with his family to Key West in 1930, from
which time he spent well over half a century memorializing Key West's history in his
intaglios or wood carvings; now therefore
BE IT RESOLVED THAT THE BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS OF
MONROE COUNTY, FLORIDA:
Section 1: Hereby adopts this Resolution as an expression to the family of their
deepest sympathy in the passing of the late Mario Sanchez.
Section 2: Hereby directs the Clerk to forward to the family of Mario Sanchez
a copy of this Resolution expressing the Board's sorrow.
Mario Sanchez
Section 2: Hereby directs the Clerk to forward to the family of Mario Sanchez
a copy of this Resolution expressing the Board's sorrow.
PASSED AND ADOPTED by the Board of County Commissioners of Monroe
County, Florida, at a meeting of said Board held on the 18th day of May, A.D., 2005.
Mayor Dixie M. Spehar
Mayor Pro Tern Charles "Sonny" McCoy
Commissioner George Neugent
Commissioner David P. Rice
Commissioner Murray E. Nelson
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OO~SSlQNERS
ArtO$t~ Clerk
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BOARD
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
OF
COUNTY
OF MONROE COUNTY, FLORIDA
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