INTERVIEW
W/ ARTIST
(video)
MAPR
DIRECTOR'S STATEMENT
by Dr. Carmen T. Ruiz de Fischler, Ph. D.
- (essay in Spanish)
- (essay in English)
ARTIST'S BIOGRAPHY
Rafael Tufiño,
a child of the Puerto Rican Diaspora, was born in Brooklyn, New York in
1922 to Puerto Rican parents. At the turn of the century, large numbers
of Puerto Ricans began relocating from the Island to the United States
in search of jobs. Tufiño’s parents had come from Puerto Rico
during that early migration; his mother was a tobacco worker and his father
a merchant marine. He was born on Bridge Street, Brooklyn, beneath the
Brooklyn Bridge, in a neighborhood that has since been dubbed Dumbo. Tufiño
first visited his parents’ homeland at age four. From 1927 to 1932
he traveled between Puerto Rico and New York, attending schools in both
locations. By 1932 Tufiño had moved to Puerto Rico, where he explored
drawing, sign painting, and other artistic activities, including assisting
in the creation of carnival floats.
Some of Tufiño’s earliest extant drawings date to his army
tenure in Panama (1943 -1946). After this, he spent one year in New York,
where he established a sign shop on 110th Street and Lexington Avenue
in El Barrio. In 1947 he took advantage of a G.I. bill scholarship to attend
the Academia de San Carlos, Mexico, where he experimented with fresco
painting, drawing, and printmaking. He became familiar with the legendary
Mexican print studio Taller de Gráfica Popular (TGP) and its artists,
although he did not formally study there. He traveled extensively throughout
the country and lived with the Zapoteca Indians. In 1948 Tufiño
married a Mexican woman, Luz María (Lucha) Aguirre, and in 1949
his first daughter, Nitza, was born.
In 1950 upon his return to Puerto Rico, Tufiño expanded his growing
interest in printmaking. In collaboration with Lorenzo Homar, José
A. Torres Martinó, and Félix Rodriguez Báez, he founded
Centro de Arte Puertorriqueña (CAP), where he honed his linocut
techniques. One year later in 1951, Tufiño became a member of the
División de Educación de la Comunidad (DIVEDCO), where he
worked as a designer and creator of fine art posters and later as director
of the printmaking workshop. During the 1950s, Tufiño produced
a significant group of prints, including several renowned graphics portfolios,
including El café (for which he received a Guggenheim Fellowship),
and Plenas (in collaboration with Lorenzo Homar, which masterfully combined
images, words, and musical scores). Tufiño painted the important
large-scale mural La Plena from 1952 -1954, and, during this same period,
he developed and exhibited a significant body of award-winning paintings,
prints, drawings, and artist´s posters.
In 1954 the artists of the TGP in Mexico recognized the influential graphic
traditions of their colleagues in Puerto Rico by hosting an exhibition;
Tufiño was not able to return to Mexico until 1958. By 1963 Tufiño
had begun working in the printmaking workshop of the Instituto de Cultural
Puertorriqueña (ICP), where he remained until 1967. He continued
to design posters for DIVEDCO through the late 1960s. In 1970 Tufiño
moved back to New York for four years. With his daughter Nitza and fellow
artist Carlos Osorio, Tufiño became actively involved in the nascent
organization Taller Boricua (the Puerto Rican Workshop), founded in 1969
in El Barrio by Marcos Dimas, Adrian Garcia, Manuel (Neco) Otero, Armando
Soto, Jorge Soto, and Martin Rubio. Taller Boricua was founded concurrently
with El Museo del Barrio to foster the art and culture of Puerto Ricans
and, through activism, to promote cultural pride. In fact, Taller Boricua
members played a significant role in founding El Museo del Barrio.
Since 1974, Tufiño has traveled between Puerto Rico and New York.
Over these many years, he has been one of the important bridges between
the large artistic community on the Island with that in New York. Tufiño
has inspired, mentored, and assisted many artists. He has been honored
in numerous international exhibitions and is represented in the permanent
collections of many institutions, including El Museo del Barrio, the Museum
of Modern Art (NY), the Metropolitan Museum of Art (NY), the Library of
Congress (Washington, D.C.), El Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico (PR), Instituto
de Cultura Puertorriqueña (PR), El Museo de Arte de Ponce (PR)
and, most recently, the National Arts Club in New York City.
