Cuba · Stone lithography, woodcut, and etching printmaking
Grabado / Litografía
Traditional stone lithography, woodcut, and metal-plate etching printmaking centered on the Taller Experimental de Gráfica de La Habana (TEG), Cuba's oldest and premier printmaking studio, founded in 1962. TEG's working collection of massive lithographic limestones — imported from Bavaria beginning in the 1800s and originally used to print cigar bands (vitolas) and cigar box labels — represents a direct material link between Cuba's tobacco industry and its fine-art printmaking tradition; a cache of roughly 4,000 additional stones was rediscovered in storage at the workshop decades later. The workshop's founding is itself a notable episode in Cuban cultural history: prompted by a 1961 artists' petition after commercial lithography had been abandoned in favor of cheaper metal plates (leaving stones used as street barricades during preparation for anticipated US invasion, and disused presses repurposed as agricultural equipment), the workshop was inaugurated in 1962 with backing from Che Guevara, reportedly at the urging of poet Pablo Neruda.
Risk level: Vulnerable · Not Applicable — no UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage inscription exists specifically for this craft at time of writing
The making of the tinajón — a large, wide-bellied, narrow-mouthed earthenware jar traditionally used to catch and store rainwater — using iron-rich red clay from the Sierra de Cubitas near Camagüey, Cuba's third-largest city and a UNESCO…
The cultivation, curing, fermentation, and hand-rolling of premium cigars (habanos) centered on the Vuelta Abajo district of Pinar del Río province, Cuba's westernmost and most celebrated tobacco region.
PARTIAL RECORD BY DESIGN. The construction of the batá — a family of three double-headed, hourglass-shaped hand drums (iyá, itótele, and okónkolo) carved from a single piece of wood and headed with animal skin — central to Cuban Santería…
The hand-weaving of hats, and secondarily baskets, bags, and fans, from the leaves of the yarey palm (Copernicia yarey, also called guano), originating in Camajuaní, Villa Clara province, in central Cuba.
Bobbin lace-making and hand embroidery centered on Trinidad, Cuba, a UNESCO World Heritage Site on the island's south coast.
The tailoring and hand-embroidery of the guayabera, Cuba's national men's shirt — declared Cuba's National Garment in 2010 — distinguished by its alforzas (vertical pleats), four patch pockets, and fine embroidery or openwork (rejilla).
Woodblock-printed popular images produced in Épinal since 1796, hand-colored by stencil (pochoir) in vivid flat colors.
Chinese paper effigy making (zhi zha) is the craft of constructing three-dimensional paper objects — houses, cars, electronic devices, clothing, food, luxury goods — to be burned as offerings for the deceased in Chinese Taoist and Buddhist…
The handmade paper tradition of Turkey Mill, Maidstone, Kent — the mill of James Whatman the Elder and Younger (18th century) where the wove mold (a paper-making mold woven from fine wire rather than laid wires, producing the smooth…
The Kurpie wycinanki tradition of the Puszcza (forest) region of Mazovia — a distinct variant from the Łowicz wycinanki (CRAFT-1362), typically single-color (green or black, referencing the forest environment) and characterized by more…
The conservation of Gutenberg Bibles and other early printed books (incunabula) at the Gutenberg Museum Mainz — the world center for the documentation and conservation of Johann Gutenberg's moveable type printing tradition.
The making of rag paper (papier chiffon) in the Charente mills — a tradition that made Angoulême the center of French paper production for three centuries and supplied the Paris publishing and printing industry.