Beginning October 8th, Worcester Art Museum presents
Mi Puerto Rico: Master Painters of the Island,
1780-1952, the first comprehensive exhibition of
the work of José Campeche y Jordán
(1715-1809), Francisco Oller y Cestero (1833-1917)
and Miguel Pou y Becerra (1880-1968). Curated by
Marimar Benítez, director of the School of
Fine Arts in San Juan and Cheryl Hartup, chief curator
at Museo de Arte de Pone (MAP), the exhibition features
47 paintings from private and public collections,
of which 15 are from MAP.
Mi Puerto Rico explores the evolution of
an artistic vision: how these three principal painters
in the island’s history saw and represented
their surroundings over the course of nearly two
centuries. MAP’s collaboration with the Worcester
Art Museum brings the island’s rich artistic
heritage to Puerto Rican audiences in Massachusetts,
New York, and the greater New England area.
Works by several contemporaries of Oller and Pou
are also included in the exhibition. These artists
were also inspired by the island’s majestic
landscape, and they portrayed its inhabitants—and
especially the abundance of the natural world—as
symbols of permanence, pride, and authenticity.
This exhibition has been made possible by the National
Endowment for the Arts, as part of American Masterpieces:
Three Centuries of Artistic Genius, and a grant
from the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services.
José Campeche y Jordán
(1751-1809)
Campeche was the official painter of his time. His
elegant, delicate, and refined portraits offer detailed
testimony about the life of the ruling classes in
18th-century Puerto Rico. He was often commissioned
to paint portraits of governors and their wives,
officers of the garrison, bishops, and colonial
officials. His probing eye allowed him to depict
true-to-life individuals posed in detailed surroundings,
offering, in addition, an authentic glimpse of the
streets of San Juan and the country’s landscape.
Francisco Oller y Cestero (1833-1917)
The legacy of artistic excellence established by
Campeche continued with Francisco Oller. His paintings
epitomized a new role for the artist, however, that
of critic as well as chronicler of society. Oller
studied abroad and brought back to Puerto Rico the
new developments in painting heralded by the European
avant-garde. Along with his peers, he embraced the
precepts of Realism and Impressionism, artistic
tendencies which were changing the face of painting
in the Europe. The landscapes he painted after he
returned to Puerto Rico sought to capture the Caribbean’s
atmosphere by portraying its tropical light and
its intense, variable skies.
Miguel Pou (1880-1968)
Miguel Pou, on the other hand, liked to portray
what the artist called “regional types”.
He noted that he was indebted to the Impressionists
for his sense of color; though in terms of subject
matter, he wished to “reflect the soul of
my people” and a way of life he feared was
being “blown by the wind” of modernity.
To this end, his best work embraced aspects of the
land, its people, and their customs.
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Click
on images to enlarge
José Campeche y Jordán.
Lady on Horseback, 1785. Oil on
wood panel, 15 x 11 7/8 in. Collection Museo de
Arte de Ponce. The Luis A. Ferré Foundation,
Inc., Ponce, Puerto Rico.
José Campeche y Jordán.
Governor Don Ramón de Castro,
1800. Oil on canvas, 92 x 64.5 in.. Municipio
de San Juan/Museo de San Juan.
Miguel Pou y Becerra. Washerwomen,
1898.
Oil in canvas,
21 x 17 1/4 in. Collection Museo de Arte de Ponce.
The Luis A. Ferré Foundation, Inc., Ponce,
Puerto Rico.
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