Havana, Jan 27 (Inditop.com/EFE) US gallery owner Gilbert Brownstone has donated to Cuba nine drawings and engravings on paper by renowned artists including Pablo Picasso, Joan Miro and Andy Warhol, Cuban state media reported.

The grant will eventually comprise 120 works of art, the state media said, with the first lot also containing pieces by French masters Camille Pisarro, Marcel Duchamp, Edouard Vuillard and Andre Masson, and by the American Roy Lichtenstein.

“Thanks to Gilbert we are acquiring essential names of the avant-garde that are not included in our cultural heritage,” Culture Minister Abel Prieto said at the acceptance ceremony for the nine works Monday night.

The gallery owner, an admirer of the Cuban revolution, was decorated with the Medal of Friendship.

Present at the conferring of the drawings and engravings were the speaker of Cuba’s parliament Ricardo Alarcon, and the director of the National Council of Plastic Arts Ruben del Valle, among other leaders of the Communist Party and the government.

Brownstone directs a foundation and a gallery bearing his name in Paris, and in 2004 gave Cuba four lithographs by Antoni Tapies.