Lorenzo Homar

Painter and printmaker

Homar moved to New York when he was very young and studied at the Art Students League there (1930) and at the Pratt Institute (1939). He worked for ten years as a jewelry designer at Cartier Jewelers, while he studied painting and printmaking at the School of the Brooklyn Museum of Art under Rufino Tamayo, Arthur Osler, and Gabor Peterdi. On his return to Puerto Rico in 1950, Homar co-founded the Center for Puerto Rican Art. From 1951 to 1956 he worked as a graphic artist and director of the Graphics Section of Division de Educación a la Comunidad (DivEdCo) and in 1957 organized the Graphic Arts Workshop at the Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña, which he directed until 1973. Homar is one of the most important figures of the “Fifties Generation” of Puerto Rican artists, and is recognized as a towering figure in the Puerto Rican graphic arts tradition. In addition, during his years in the Graphic Arts studios he taught two generations of Puerto Rico’s finest graphic artists; his influence on the Puerto Rican graphic arts tradition cannot be overstated. His painstaking print technique is paralleled in his painting, both of which are done in a realistic style characterized by the precision of color and line.