Documents of Latin American and Latino Art

In this letter sent to the Puerto Rican Socialist Party’s newspaper Claridad, printmaker Lorenzo Homar replies to an article by Puerto Rican writer Edwin Reyes. Homar attacks the position taken by Reyes—and by “Santitos,” a character who [...]

In this letter, Puerto Rican artist Paul Camacho conveys his personal opinion to printmaker Lorenzo Homar concerning an exhibition at the Escuela de Artes Plásticas [School of Visual Arts] at the Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña [ICP, Puerto [...]

Alberto Beltrán, a Mexican artist, writes to his friend, Puerto Rican printmaker Lorenzo Homar, to thank him for his earlier letter explaining the problems surrounding the IV Bienal de San Juan del Grabado Latinoamericano [4th San Juan Biennial of [...]

Puerto Rican printmaker Lorenzo Homar writes to Félix Rodriguez Báez, who at the time was the director of the Escuela de Artes Plásticas [School of Visual Arts] of the Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña [ICP, Puerto Rican Cultural Institute], to [...]

Alberto Beltrán, a Mexican printmaker, writes to Puerto Rican artist Lorenzo Homar to discuss recent art events and news in Mexico. Beltrán tells Homar that he has heard that art critic Raquel Tibol is in Puerto Rico, and mentions the recent [...]

In this letter from Mexican printmaker Alberto Beltrán to his friend and colleague, Puerto Rican Lorenzo Homar, the former discusses the 50th anniversary of the Taller de Gráfica Popular [TGP, People’s Print Workshop] in Mexico. Beltrán tells [...]

Luis E. Díaz Hernández, executive director of the Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña [Puerto Rican Cultural Institute] (ICP), sent a letter to the artist Lorenzo Homar with a questionnaire consisting of five questions. The objective of the [...]

This document was written under the letterhead “Tres” [Three], yet signed by artists Carmen Lomas Garza, Amado Maurilio Peña, and César Augusto Martinez. The authors outline their reasons for resigning from the collective Con Safo [sometimes [...]

In this letter, San Francisco artist and muralist Graciela Carrillo challenges Malaquías Montoya’s essay, “A Critical Perspective in the State of Chicano Art,” on what she describes as its elitist, rhetorical style that made it hard to read, [...]

In this text, Martí Casanovas responds to a letter by Franz Tamayo considering the question of what direction the development of Indio-American culture should take. Distinguishing his philosophy from Tamayo’s, Casanovas explains that he believes [...]

In this letter to Puerto Rican artist Lorenzo Homar, Mexican artist Alberto Beltrán comments on the new issue of the publication, El coyote emplumado[The Plumed Coyote], which will cover topics relating to the campaign being waged by right-wing [...]

In this letter, Mexican artist Albero Beltrán (1923–2002) informs Puerto Rican artist Lorenzo Homar that the course in poster design that Polish designer Wiktor Gorka was offering at the Academia de San Carlos (Mexico City) would continue until [...]

Colombian artist Pedro Alcántara informs his Puerto Rican colleague Lorenzo Homar that the individuals who signed the letter sent to Luis Manuel Rodríguez Morales, director of the Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña (ICP), represent a majority of [...]

Colombian artist Pedro Alcántara informs his Puerto Rican colleague Lorenzo Homar of the final date for the exhibition of posters and other graphic arts, entitled Homenaje a Puerto Rico. He also mentions the materials necessary for the workshop that [...]

In this letter to Ricardo Alegría, the director of the Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña (ICP) at the time, Lorenzo Homar discusses an array of topics, including the IV Bienal de San Juan del Grabado Latinoamericano [Fourth Latin American Print [...]

Mexican artist Alberto Beltrán (Mexico City, b. 1923) informs Puerto Rican printmaker Lorenzo Homar that he is retiring from journalism, and his editorial responsibilities at the supplement to El Día newspaper, El Gallo Ilustrado, in order to spend [...]

In a letter to his Puerto Rican colleague Lorenzo Homar, Colombian artist Pedro Alcántara expresses his outrage at the death of Chilean President Salvador Allende during the attack on the Palacio de La Moneda by military forces staging a coup d'é [...]

Colombian artist Pedro Alcántara informs his Puerto Rican colleague Lorenzo Homar that the Colombian company Carvajal y Compañía had committed to donating funds for the construction of a printmaking studio. Alcántara asks Homar to help him put [...]

Colombian artist Pedro Alcántara thanks his Puerto Rican colleague Lorenzo Homar for a number of gifts brought to him by Ramiro Pazmiño. One of the first things that Alcántara mentions in this letter is a problem at the Encuentro de La Habana [ [...]

This is a letter from Colombian artist Pedro Alcántara to Cuban painter Mariano Rodríguez, in which the former warns the latter that the painter Carlos Granada—who represented Colombia at the Encuentro de Plástica Latinoamericana [Latin American [...]

This is the third report that Puerto Rican artist Lorenzo Homar sent to Ricardo Alegría, executive director of the Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña (ICP), while he was on sabbatical in Europe. Homar provides an overview of everything he has seen [...]

The Puerto Rican artist, Félix Rodríguez Báez, wrote a letter to all the members of the Galería Campeche [Campeche Gallery] in which he asked them to read and comment on the rules. He also sent them two invitations in which he established the [...]

This is an essay written by José R. Echevarría about Surrealism and the creative life. He believes that all creative acts are a protest against a “given” reality. He adds that dreams, delirium, fantasy, and memory are all means of accessing [...]

In this open letter by Alejandro Otero [Rodríguez] to his  journalist friend, Miguel Otero Silva, the Venezuelan artist brings forth his objection to the National Sculpture Award given to the Spanish sculptor Eduardo Gregorio at the XVIII Salón [...]

This letter was written by UCLA professor Chon Noriega to Elisabeth Sussman, a former curator of the Whitney Museum of American Art. Written in 1993, the letter addresses several concerns about the museum’s upcoming Biennial Exhibition with [...]

This letter written by the Comité Ejecutivo of the Liga de Escritores y Artistas Revolucionarios [Executive Committee of the League of Revolutionary Writers and Artists] was addressed to the American Writers’ Congress (AWC) in New York; it [...]

The letter from Ricardo Gómez Robelo to Edward Weston is an emotional letter thanking Weston for the gift of some photographs, but, above all, he is grateful for Weston’s friendship. Robelo acknowledges that they [the group of friends around [...]

In this letter, the painter [and writer] Roubaix de l’Abrie Richey, known by the pseudonym, “Robo,” the husband of the Italian artist and photographer, Tina Modotti, writes to Edward Weston from Mexico City. The writer is visiting Mexico in [...]

The newspaper Excélsior reproduces an open letter to Nabor Carrillo, rector of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico, signed by both Diego Rivera and David Alfaro Siqueiros, putting into question UNAM’s choice of Mathí [...]

In this letter, artist Marcos Dimas writes to art critic Lucy R. Lippard and invites her to review his exhibition at El Museo del Barrio. Dimas discusses his participation in an activist artist collective, known as the Art Workers’ Coalition, and [...]

According to the communiqué, several members of the LEAR [League of Revolutionary Writers and Artists] were scolded by the League’s Executive Committee for overextending their stay in New York and abandoning their League duties, The members were [...]

In this letter, Rufino Tamayo hints at the friction experienced by an artist who put his personal goals above the demands of political activism. Tamayo promises to report on the failings of the delegation to the LEAR and apologizes for asking the [...]

Juan de la Cabada reports on progress in organizing a Congreso Continental de Científicos [Scientists’ Continental Congress] in Mexico City under the direction of Víctor Manuel Villaseñor in accordance with the resolutions of the American [...]

After discussing how busy Germán List Arzubide—the Estridentista from old times—kept in New York’s workers’ media, Ben Ossa mentions the ideas suggested to LEAR by the “Congreso de Artistas Americanos (de Estados Unidos)” [American [...]

“The Red International”—as Ramón Pi, Jr. referred to himself—describes his vehicle for distributing revolutionary words and images from his base in New York. His goal is to place his publication in the hands of professionals whose names he [...]

This essay discusses LEAR’s decision to establish a “Bureau Editor for Mexico” to publish the continent-oriented magazine, Sin Fronteras / All America—the roots of the future “Congreso Continental de Escritores y Artistas de Toda América [ [...]

This document proposes an exchange of publications between Frente a Frente and New Masses, but its main goal is to convince the North American publication to use its influence to help connect LEAR to the Association d’Écrivains et Artistes [...]

This is a letter addressed to Barnabé Barrios, in New York, signed by Juan de la Cabada and Luis Arenal, as the editor and a member of the Executive Committee, respectively, of Frente a Frente [Face to Face] magazine. The authors inform Bernabé [...]

While he was in Brussels, Fernando Gamboa stayed in close communication with the architect Enrique Yáñez, who informed him of the progress of the artists working on the Centro Médico [Medical Center]. In addition to designing the Centro, Yáñez [...]

A letter dated June 10, 1958, from Maria Luisa Mendoza to Fernando Gamboa (who was in Brussels at the time) took the form of a progress report. Mendoza, a consultant on the art integration project Centro Médico Nacional [National Medical Center], [...]

This text includes excerpts from two letters written by Texas artist César Martinez in 1979. The first letter discusses the importance of culture within the Chicano movement, describing the discontent created by negative representations of Chicano [...]

In this letter, the interim director of the Escuela Central de Artes Plásticas [Central School of the Visual Arts] informs the rector of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México [UNAM National Autonomous University of Mexico], and attorney-at- [...]

David Alfaro Siqueiros writes a letter to Teresa León from a military command post in Spain during the Civil War, telling her of his combat experiences at the front and comparing procedures there with artistic work. He sees that in both there are [...]

David Alfaro Siqueiros sent a letter to the Minister of Public Education, José Manuel Puig Cassauranc, when he was dismissed from his ministry job as professor of drawing and manual works, for which he was paid three pesos a day. His dismissal was [...]

On these scant three sheets of paper, Diego Rivera explores a wide range of ideas on the subject of art. This document is important because of the depth of Rivera’s ruminations on aesthetic emotions, color, form, texture, touch, feelings, and [...]

In this brief letter, ex-President Lázaro Cárdenas congratulates Fernando Gamboa for the “message” he sent regarding Mexico by means of the Brussels Pavilion at the International Fair of 1958 which Cárdenas had visited only a few days earlier [...]

In this letter, Fernando Gamboa tells José (his last name is illegible) that the exhibition has been received positively. According to Gamboa there are those who have discovered an authentic pictorial path in Mexican painting, a possible escape from [...]

The Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes y Literatura (INBAL, 1947) invited Rufino Tamayo to participate in the Mexican Art Exhibition that would take place in Europe. The Oaxacan painter responded that he could not give them an answer until “he knew [...]

The letter from [Greek artist] Takis tells Pierre Restany that he has not represented Greece at any international cultural event since Greece’s democracy was suspended. Takis thanks Restany for the invitation and hopes he understands the situation [...]

Hans Haacke’s letter shows that he pondered the invitation sent by Gyorgy Kepes and decided not to represent the United States abroad for a pair of reasons: because Americans were supporting an immoral war in Vietnam and a fascist government was [...]