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Graphics

Unique in its scope and richness, El Museo del Barrio’s Permanent Collection of graphics today numbers over four thousand works. These include fine and popular prints, artistic posters, portfolios, and artists’ books. Because of the traditional emphasis on printmaking in Latin America, and the excellence of its artists in this medium, El Museo has a superb collection of graphics by diverse constituencies, particularly by Puerto Rican and Mexican creators. These include all varieties of intaglio, planographic, and relief processes, conceptual works, and experimental multiples. Often these prints and posters serve to document the lives of institutions, including exhibitions, theatrical or musical productions. Since the graphic arts frequently have been politically instigated, great works of art also serve as records of the unfolding histories, struggles, actions, and events pertinent to Puerto Ricans, Latinos, and Latin Americans.

Carlos Irizarry, Andy Warhol, 1970, From the portfolio The Sixties Plus Picasso (Los sesenta y Picasso), Photo serigraph, AP, Collection El Museo del Barrio, NY, W91.425, Detail.

Puerto Rican Printmaking Workshops

While international in scope, the collections are particularly rich in artworks produced by Puerto Ricans both on the Island and in the United States, particularly New York. The concentration of such materials is unique outside of Puerto Rico, and is a valuable national resource. El Museo’s holdings attest to Puerto Rico’s distinguished history of printmaking from the 1940s to the present. While many works are produced by individual artists, a large number are the products of workshops founded in Puerto Rico. These include the inspirational works of CAP (Centro de Arte Puertorriqueño, 1950–1952), the workshop of the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture (El Taller de Gráfica del Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña, 1957–1985), and the internationally renowned poster production of DivEdCo (División de Educación de la Comunidad, 1949–1989). Puerto Rico’s central importance in graphics was affirmed by the creation of the San Juan Biennial of Printmaking of Latin American and the Caribbean in 1970 (La Bienal de San Juan del Grabado Latinoamericano y del Caribe).

 

Rafael Ferrer, Untitled (Sin título), 1974, From the portfolio Istoria de la Isla (“Istory” of the Island), edition 4 of 20, Collection El Museo del Barrio, NY, W91.471.5, Detail.

New York Printmaking Workshops

In New York, the Puerto Rican community has founded—or been an active component of—many print workshops. Most notably, our sister institution, the Puerto Rican Workshop (El Taller Alma Boricua), initiated in 1969 in El Barrio, in many ways continues to be closely entwined with the evolution of El Museo. The Permanent Collection contains graphics by artists affiliated with Taller Boricua, as well as the various portfolios the studio has produced. Other workshops have counted on the leading contributions of Puerto Rican artists, including The Printmaking Workshop (founded by the African American printmaker Robert Blackburn in 1948) and the Lower East Side Printshop (founded in 1968). In 2000, El Museo received a donation of over one hundred graphic works by Puerto Rican, Caribbean, Latino, and Latin American artists from Robert Blackburn.

 

Marcos Dimas, Lolita Lebrón: Puerto Rican Freedom Fighter (Lolita Lebrón: Luchadora por la libertad puertorriqueña), 1971, Serigraph
Collection El Museo del Barrio, NY, W91.1460, Detail.

Mexican and Chicano Printmaking
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A secondary area of strength is El Museo’s growing collection of prints by Mexican and Chicano artists. Due to the close affiliation between Mexican and Puerto Rican printmakers, this collection is of particular relevance. Often, the Mexican movements were role models for the Island’s artists. They offered rationales for the popular and educational mode of image-¬making as a means of broad distribution with great political impact. Most of the major Puerto Rican artists of the 1950s generation studied in Mexico or with Mexican printmakers. Workshops like the fabled TGP (Taller de Gráfica Popular, 1937–ca. 1965) set the tone for much of the twentieth century’s socially committed print production. While Puerto Ricans then transmitted these ideals to New York, Mexican¬-Americans on the West Coast also looked to these strong examples.

Since the 1960s, a parallel development in printmaking between the Nuyorican and Chicano movements in the United States has been noted. Both employed printmaking as a powerful tool during the period of civil rights struggles. As a means of cultural affirmation, the widely disseminated, high-¬impact posters and graphics that came out of influential West Coast workshops continue to set a standard for politically committed printmaking. The Royal Chicano Air Force in Sacramento (RCAF, founded 1970), La Raza Graphic Center in San Francisco (founded 1971), and Self Help Graphics in Los Angeles (founded 1972) are just a few of the many Chicano graphics initiatives from this period.

 

Ignacio Aguirre, Emiliano Zapata hecho prisionero por su lucha en favor de los campesinos, (Emiliano Zapata Made Prisoner For his Fight in Favor of the "Campesinos”), 1947, Linoleum block print, Collection El Museo del Barrio, NY, W91.421.16, Detail.