Marta Traba wrote this text in 1971 after having been commissioned by the Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña (ICP) to write a book—which was never published—tentatively entitled Cuatro Pintores Puertorriqueños. The project was to include Puerto Rican artists Francisco Rodón, Julio Rosado del Valle, Luis Hernández Cruz, and Lorenzo Homar.Francisco Rodón (San Sebastián, Puerto Rico, b. 1934) studied in Paris, Madrid, and the United States. In 1959, he returned to Puerto Rico and began studying graphic art with Lorenzo Homar at the Taller de Gráfica of the Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña (ICP). In 1968, he was named artist-in-residence of the Universidad de Puerto Rico. Known for portraiture, Rodón, whose work has been internationally recognized, has received a number of major prizes.Marta Traba (1930–1983) published a substantial number of articles in the various countries where she lived. When she arrived in San Juan, Puerto Rico, she had previously lived in Bogota, New York, Paris, and Buenos Aires. From August 1970 through the summer of 1971, the University of Puerto Rico at Río Piedras engaged her to teach a course on Latin American art as well as the obligatory courses on the General Theory of Art History (201) and the History of Modern Art (213), among others, in the department of fine arts. In the summer of 1971, she taught a class on aesthetics. At the end of the summer, the University did not renew her contract. While she was living in Puerto Rico, Traba wrote books, and many newspaper and magazine articles, in which she expressed her views on Puerto Rican art, which prompted considerable response and criticism in art circles.