Francisco Rodón (B. 1934)

Acquired from the artist
Dr. Ángel Miranda, Puerto Rico (1963)
Acquired from the above (1964)

Puerto Rico, Museo de Historia, Antropología y Arte, Universidad de Puerto Rico, Rodón, April 3-May 10, 1963, n. 17, illustrated

Virtually self-taught, the Puerto Rican painter Francisco Rodón spent much of the 1950s traveling and studying informally abroad in such major art centers as Madrid, Mexico, Paris, and New York—a period undoubtedly critical to his overall artistic development. Rodón was particularly drawn to the work of the Spanish masters Velásquez, Ribera, and Goya in terms of their ability to convey deep psychological moods as well as the bravura of their painting. Likewise his brief encounters in New York with the American abstract expressionist painter Hans Hoffman also proved to be influential in the adoption of certain formal and expressionistic tendencies. Upon his return to the Island in 1959, he studied briefly with Lorenzo Homar, then director of the Taller de Artes Gráficas del Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña. However Rodón never adopted the regional social realism of this generation, and although he never abandoned the figure, he opted for a more universal approach rendered in a highly painterly and expressionistic mode.

Although by the 1970s Rodón became increasingly well known for his monumental portraits, the traditional theme of the still life has also provided the artist ample inspiration throughout his remarkable career as is evident in this early painting from 1962 Naturaleza muerta con aguagate and such later works as El vendedor de solandras (1991-93) now in the collection of the Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico in San Juan. Naturaleza muerta con aguagate—a rediscovered work not on public view since 1963 when it was included in the artist’s solo exhibition at the Museo de Historia, Antropología y Arte at the University of Puerto Rico in Rio Piedras—reflects Rodón’s penchant for imbuing his work with a highly meditative and psychological content that transcends the seemingly benign subject matter as is the case with this still life with avocados. Possessing a penetrating and brooding quality of existential proportions—not unlike his approach to portraiture— this work successfully conveys the lessons absorbed from his travels while signaling his eventual mature style and his unique ability to fuse form, content, and the emotive potential of painting.