CHRISTOPHER MARQUIS Herald Staff Writer

Amid threats and sidewalk protests, the Cuban Museum of Art and Culture earned about $50,000 in commissions on sales of 150 paintings, selling all but 11 pieces put on the block, the auction's organizer said Saturday.

The auction Friday night, which featured paintings by three Cuban artists who have not broken with the Castro government, grossed $200,000 for the artworks' owners, said museum vice president Ramon Cernuda.

Though the sale was bitterly opposed by some anti-Communist exiles, Cernuda called the event "a complete success." He said some of the funds would be used to stage an exhibit next month of paintings by Amelia Pelaez, a pillar of modern Cuban art who died on the island in 1968.

The Pelaez show could fuel a new controversy, Cernuda said.

Pelaez's name surfaced on Spanish-language radio shows last week as a perceived Communist collaborator.

"My understanding is that she's one of those people who never repudiated the Castro regime," said Marian Prio, a museum director who does not oppose the show.

Pelaez's prolific career spanned half a century of Cuban governments. Her works, mostly still-life paintings, were apolitical. "We never know with these people who are so intolerant," said Cernuda, still angered by a protester's decision to burn a painting Friday. "They may want to burn Amelia at the stake."

Fernando Alvarez-Perez, a physician and art collector who took part in Friday's protest, said it was important to distinguish between the work of Pelaez, with whom he had not objection, and artists such as Mariano Rodriguez, who accepted appointments from Castro.

"She had no history of being an instrument of the Castro regime," he said.