Julio Larraz at Art Basel Miami Beach

GOING SOLO

Miami artist Julio Larraz, 70, is having a busy year. The Cuban born painter, whose work sells for upward of a quarter of a million dollars, is one of few artists with a solo gallery showing at the convention center for Art Basel. His work is also featured in a new major motion picture, Same Kind Of Different Than Me, starring a brunette Renee Zellweger and Greg Kinnear and currently filming in Mississippi.

Author Ron Hall based a character on Larraz, and the artist has been spending time on the set painting portraits of the actors, including Djimon Hounsou. If you find yourself at the hot new restaurant 27 at the Freehand Hotel in Miami Beach, you can see one of his pieces titled Homage to Carmen Miranda, which has just been hung for the young and trendy to admire.

Madeline Marr & Lesley Abravanel 

http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/celebrities/article4227123.html