This Portfolio is the first publication of the Centro de Arte Puertorriqueño. It is the result of the collective work of a group of artists who are trying to develop a particularly Puerto Rican form of expression in the arts. They believe that working in the media of prints, arts can be made available to a larger and larger audience; that art in Puerto Rico can only develop through the identification of the artists with their people and their country; that only by working together and discussing together the problems that arise from their work can they infuse a new vitality into Puerto Rican art.
It was with this in mind that a small group of artists founded the Centro de Arte Puertorriqueño in December 1950. This Portfolio marks the first anniversary.
The CAP is the only institution of its kind in Puerto Rico dedicated to the development of the plastics arts. It maintains a permanent gallery, and art school and workshop for painting and the graphic arts.
The Gallery is at the disposition of all the artists on the island as a means of communication between the artists and the people. It has presented both one-man shows and group exhibitions, and is particularly interested in showing the work of young artists. it also organizes traveling exhibitions for the towns and rural areas of the island.
The Art School gives regular classes for both children and adults. The children's classes are designed to help the child achieve a freer expression of his creative potentialities, and like the classes for adults, they try to establish, through drawing and painting, a closer identification of the pupil with the people of which he forms a part.
The CAP Workshop is open to all artists, space permitting, who wish to use its facilities for painting, but it places special emphasis on the graphic arts; wood cuts, engraving, etching, lithography and silk-screen printing which due to their common character as printing processes permit them to reach a larger audience at lower cost. Besides this portfolio, the CAP workshop has produced limited editions of wood and linoleum cuts, etching and silk-screen prints. Plans are being made to establish similar workshops in other towns in Puerto Rico.
The CAP hopes to achieve that intimate relation between the artists and the Puerto Rican people which is so indispensable to the development of a genuine and vigorous cultural movement. The plan of action to win these fundamental objective includes:
--All possible help to young artists.
--Exhibitions in the CAP Gallery and elsewhere.
--Discussion on art in schools and other groups.
--The use of press and radio to discuss art topics, and to give practical methods of getting materials for artists and students.
--The establishment of Art Center throughout he island.
The CAP welcomes any suggestions or constructive criticism of this publication or of any other aspect of the institution.