Around 1943, Alicea began studying under Puerto Rican painter Miguel Pou (1880-1968), focusing together on drawing and painting at Academia Pou in Ponce, PR. 

From 1957 onwards, Alicea enrolled in a printmaking workshop at the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture. Here Alecia learned wood and lino-cutting, serigraphy (silk screen printing), etching, and intaglio printmaking. Alicea had passion and promise, so he quickly became mentor-turned-employer Lorenzo Homar’s (1913-2004) assistant for three years.

By 1965 however, Alicea obtained a teaching position at the School of Plastic Arts and Design of Puerto Rico as a print professor. He taught for around 30 years. Also, during this time period Alicea’s career was really taking off: he was commissioned to design the set-scenery for Ballets de San Juan, received numerous print and poster commissions and awards, was praised with multiple honorable mentions, and received honorary doctorates from a couple institutes for his contributions and skill in the fine arts. 

Within Alicea’s long and rich career, he has had roughly 27 solo exhibitions and nearly 100 group shows all around Puerto Rico, several of the United States, South and Central America, and many countries in Europe.

Alicea started his education in the 40’s and his career in the 50’s. Around this time was when Puerto Rico joined the United States Commonwealth. For Puerto Ricans like Alicea, this was a conflicting time: artists could easily move to the states, but struggled with keeping their culture alive. The 50’s and 60’s produced works of social protest and national identity.

It is unclear when, but José R. Alicea and his mother eventually moved to New York where he would become an American Citizen. And despite his busy, critically acclaimed printing career, Alicea still had time to create a family with his wife Carmen Morales, bringing two sons and a daughter into the world. 

Nearing the 60’s, Puerto Rican artists had cultural identity crises; the New York school pushed the “universal” abstract expressionism, while American-Puerto Rican artists struggled to hold onto their nationalism. Many critics thought less of “exotic” works that didn’t conform to abstraction. 

During the 60’s, social protest and graphic art continued, as well as surviving their culture; Alicea’s work usually reflected the mythology of the Caribbean Indigenous Taino people, as well as traditions within the Afro-Puerto Rican community. 

With such mastery of his work, Alicea surely influenced the ways of Puerto Rican print making. For example, Alicea also made political prints with letters and calligraphy, which was soon adopted by other Puerto Rican artists working in graphics, as well as sculpture and painting. 

The types of texts Alicea chose were important. He made sure to study the issues surrounding a particular text; which ccould range from poetry, patriotic passages, scripture, or popular stories. Some of his inspired texts included The Ugly Duckling (1975) and Rio Grande de Loíza (1966) by Julia Burgos. Alicea says: "I think the poetry and the plastic arts are united...  I read a poem of Julia de Burgos and I see it plastically, one lives its technique and its content, its composition, its idea...”. So, with his inspirational subject matter chosen, Alicea can “see” the texts; how the words and their meanings orchestrate the engraving’s composition and guide the techniques needed to be employed.

Alicea teeters between literal text-to-illustration translations or symbolic images to represent his chosen phrase. Finally, Alicea strategically planned where the text in the composition would provide the most potent reaction in viewers.

Throughout his practice, Alicea maintains that staying up-to-date on new engraving techniques is key. Although he favours woodcuts and silkscreens, Alicea checks out the latest technique-trends online. He often gives them a try, and if he doesn’t think it suits him, he sticks to what he knows. Alicea loves Xylography (woodcuts) due to its larger size and allowance to use plenty of color. Alicea’s palette vastly ranges depending on the tone and context of his chosen texts. Political prints are usually black and white and may include bold pops of colour, while other pieces call for softer hues, sepia tones, or total vibrancy. Alicea's compositional vision allows him to explore expansive colour arrangements. 

As for print themes, Alicea had worked on commissions for cultural, sporting, social events, and anything in between. In a 2019 interview, Alicea states that some of his work is about “[…] politics because we [Puerto Ricans] really are oppressed people. We are people that are neither a state nor independent; we do not have a fixed status, and I believe that artists should fight for their homeland in their art. I think that’s very important” (José R. Alicea (90 años), San Juan, PR, 7:23 min).

In another interview about his homeland and trade, Alicea quotes: "I've been linked, through my work, to the struggle for the independence of this country, although I've never been militant. But art, if you will - and I say this because art for art’s sake is also very valid, respectable and necessary - can be an instrument of struggle. Above all printmaking because of their ease of reproduction facilitates the dissemination of a message for the masses" (José Alicea, El Nuevo Día newspaper, Sunday, October, 29, 2000).

The Artist; Photos: Working as Illustrator at the Department of Labor of Puerto Rico

Fig. 2 | "Untitled.” Alicea, https://josealiceaeningles.weebly.com/photos.html. Accessed 13 Dec. 2022. 

The Artist; Photos: Here with his dog Alba

Fig. 3-12 | "Rio Grande of Loíza.” Alicea, https://josealiceaeningles.weebly.com/rio-grande-of-loiza.html. Accessed 13 Dec. 2022. 

Portfolios; Works Based on Poems; Rio Grande of Loíza: The Portfolio "Río Grande de Loíza" consists of ten works about the poem of Julia de Burgos of the same name. The size of the works is 20 ¾” x 15” in plexiglass and text en silkscreen, year 1966.

Fig. 13, 14 | "Untitled.” Alicea, https://josealiceaeningles.weebly.com/illustrations.html. Accessed 13 Dec. 2022. 

Illustrations

Fig. 15 | “Peace for Vieques.” Alicea, https://josealiceaeningles.weebly.com/single-artworks.html. Accessed 13 Dec. 2022. 

Single Artworks; Peace for Vieques: Peace for Vieques 48" dia.

Fig. 16 | “I Do No Believe in Death, Triptych.” Alicea, https://josealiceaeningles.weebly.com/single-artworks.html. Accessed 13 Dec. 2022. 

Single Artworks; I Do no Believe in Death, Triptych: each 51" x 36", wood, 1991

Fig. 17-20 | "Untitled.” Alicea, https://josealiceaeningles.weebly.com/1980---1989.html Accessed 13 Dec. 2022. 

Artworks; Posters

“Artist Directory.” José Alicea | Museo De Arte De Puerto Rico, https://www.mapr.org/en/museum/proa/artist/alicea-jose. 

Benítez, Marimar. “Tres Décadas De Gráfica Puertorriqueña.” ICAA, http://icaa.mfah.org/s/en/item/822323#?c=&m=&s=&cv=&xywh=-1116%2C0%2C3930%2C2199. 

Digitalized from: Benítez, Miramar. “Tres décadas de gráfica puertorriqueña.” El Sol, Revista Oficial de la Asociación de Maestros de Puerto Rico, no. 3-4 (Año XXVII): 6–10.

Bonilla Norat, Félix, and Flavia Marichal Lugo. “San Juan Biennial Scores a Philadelphic Connection : Third of Biennial Budget to Be Bicentennial.” ICAA, http://icaa.mfah.org/s/en/item/826896#?c=&m=&s=&cv=&xywh=-628%2C0%2C4555%2C2549. Accessed 9 Dec. 2022. 

Digitalized from: Bonilla Norat, Félix. "San Juan Biennial scores a Philadelphic connection : third of Biennial budget to be Bicentennial." Sunday San Juan Star Magazine (San Juan, Puerto Rico), March 21, 1976, 8-9.

Fernández, Méndez, Eugenio, and Flavia Marichal Lugo. “José R. Alicea, Biografía Íntima y Personal De Un Gran Artista Gráfico.” ICAA. 

Digitized from: Fernández Méndez, Eugenio. “José R. Alicea, biografía íntima y personal de un gran artista gráfico.” Puerto Rico: Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña, 1979.

“Jose+R.+Alicea: Search: Moma.” The Museum of Modern Art, https://www.moma.org/search/?bucket=1&query=Jose%2BR.%2BAlicea. 

“José R Alicea Biography: Annex Galleries Fine Prints.” José R Alicea Biography | Annex Galleries Fine Prints, The Annex Galleries, https://www.annexgalleries.com/artists/biography/4064/Alicea/Jos%C3%A9. 

“José R. Alicea (90 Años), San Juan, PR, 7:23 Min.” YouTube, 16 Aug. 2019, https://youtu.be/b-NPxRFE0nc. 

Lorenzo, Homar. “[Letter] 1976 May 10, San Juan, Puerto Rico [to] Director De El Nuevo Día.” ICAA, http://icaa.mfah.org/s/en/item/861769#?c=&m=&s=&cv=&xywh=-1116%2C0%2C3930%2C2199. Accessed 9 Dec. 2022. 

Digitized from: Homar, Lorenzo to Directo de El Nuevo Día, San Juan, Puerto Rico, May 10, 1976. The private archives of Laura and Susan Homar Dämm, San Juan de Puerto Rico.

Lugo de Marichal, Flavia. “Aproximación Al Desarrollo Histórico De La Xilografía En Puerto Rico 1950-1986.” ICAA, http://icaa.mfah.org/s/en/item/806507#?c=&m=&s=&cv=&xywh=-837%2C0%2C2947%2C1649. Accessed 9 Dec. 2022. 

Digitalized from: Lugo de Marichal, Flavia. “Aproximación al desarrollo histórico de la xilografía en Puerto Rico 1950-1986.” In La xilografía en Puerto Rico 1950-1986, 17–43. San Juan, Puerto Rico: Museo de la Universidad de Puerto Rico,1986.

Marrozzini, Luigi, and Flavia Marichal Lugo. “Introducción.” ICAA, http://icaa.mfah.org/s/en/item/863252#?c=&m=&s=&cv=&xywh=-1116%2C0%2C3930%2C2199. Accessed 9 Dec. 2022. 

“Río Grande De Loíza by Julia De Burgos.” By Julia De Burgos - Famous Poems, Famous Poets. - All Poetry, https://allpoetry.com/Ro-Grande-de-Loza. 

Sánchez, Juan. “The Artists Respond: Art, Culture, Politics.” ICAA, http://icaa.mfah.org/s/en/item/842672#?c=&m=&s=&cv=&xywh=-1116%2C0%2C3930%2C2199. Accessed 9 Dec. 2022. 

Digitalized from: Sánchez, Juan. “The Artists Respond: Art, Culture, Politics.” In Puerto Rican Equation: Puerto Rican Artists Ponder 100 Years Since the 1898 Invasion. Exh. cat., New York: Hunter College of the City University of New York, 1998.

Tió, Teresa, and Flavia Marichal. “El Portafolios Gráfico o La Hoja Liberada.” ICAA, http://icaa.mfah.org/s/en/item/806479#?c=&m=&s=&cv=&xywh=-837%2C0%2C2947%2C1649. Accessed 9 Dec. 2022. 

Digitilized from: Tió, Teresa. "El portafolios gráfico o la hoja liberada." In El portafolios en la gráfica puertorriqueña, 7-54. San Juan, Puerto Rico : Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña, 1995.

Trelles- Hernández, Mercedes. “La Estampa Del Grabador : Entrevista a José R. Alicea.” ICAA, http://icaa.mfah.org/s/en/item/866946#?c=&m=&s=&cv=&xywh=-1116%2C0%2C3930%2C2199. Accessed 9 Dec. 2022. 

Digitalized from El Nuevo Día, Revista Domingo (San Juan, Puerto Rico). -- Nov. 1, 1998.

Vázquez, Doris M. “The Art of the Puerto Rican People.” Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute, Yale University, 2019. 

Curriculum unit 84.03.08

Each of the 10 artworks has one-out-of-the-ten verses of the poem to the left, and an illustration to the right that best represents the emotion and scene of the lyrics. This creates an aesthetic uniformity within the almost unsettling black and white, heavily symbolic and gothic graphics.

In English the poem reads: 

 

Rio Grande de Loíza! ... Stay in my spirit

and let my soul get lost in your streams,

to find the source that stole you as a child

and in a mad rush he returned you to the path.

 

 

Curl up on my lips and let me drink you

to feel you mine for a brief moment,

and hide from the world, and hide in yourself,

and hear voices of wonder, in the mouth of the wind.

 

Get off the back of the earth for a moment,

and look for the intimate secret of my anxieties;

confuse me in the flight of my fantasy bird,

and leave me a rose of water in my dreams.

 

Rio Grande de Loíza! .. My spring, my river,

since the maternal petal rose to the world;

with you they came down from the rough slopes

to look for new furrows, my pale yearnings;

and my childhood was a whole poem on the river,

and a river in the poem of my first dreams.

 

Adolescence arrived. Life surprised me

caught in the widest of your eternal travel;

and I was yours a thousand times, and in a beautiful romance

you woke up my soul and kissed my body.

 

Where did you take the waters that bathed

my forms, spike of the sun just opened?

Who knows in what remote Mediterranean country

some faun on the beach will be possessing me!

 

Who knows in what downpour from what distant land

I will be spilling to open new furrows;

or if anything, tired of biting hearts,

I'll be freezing into ice crystals!

 

Rio Grande de Loíza! Blue, Brown, Red.

Blue mirror, fallen blue piece of the sky;

naked white flesh that turns black

every time the night gets into your bed;

Red streak of blood, when the rain comes down

the hills vomit its mud into torrents.

 

River man, but man with river purity,

because you give your blue soul when you give your blue kiss.

Dear sir, my river. River man. Only man

who has kissed my soul by kissing my body.

 

Rio Grande de Loíza! ... Rio Grande. Big cry.

The greatest of all our island cries,

If it were not bigger than the one that comes out of me

through the eyes of the soul for my slave people.

 

In figure 3, the first verse of the poem, the most apparent figure is the head of a woman, possibly the representation of poet Julia de Burgos. She has a strong, chiseled face, however, she is looking down solemnly, eyebrows slightly furrowed, as if deep in thought or reliving bittersweet memories, which is quite likely considering the verse alongside her. 

The high-contrast hair that cascades down her face flows in such a way that looks like a stream, symbolizing that she and the river are never one without the other. 

In the direction of the woman’s downturned gaze, we see a naked woman’s back turned to us. She appears to be laying or crouching in the foliage, her legs slowly becoming more fluid, once again symbolizing her deep-rooted connection to the river. 

Directly adjacent to the body is a bird, wings not fully in resting position. The tense feeling of the birds wings, pairing with the fact that the bird is looking up, suggests that it is darting up and away, flying free; perhaps symbolizing hope and freedom. 

In figure 4, the woman seen in the previous figure is now crouching down to meet the river with her lips. In the text she wants to sip from the river, becoming one with it. The sip invites the river to overtake her in order to melt away from any worries the outside-world has to offer. Here, in the refuge of the forest, she is calm and safe.

The woman has a weary, tired expression on her face as indicated with the bags under her eyes. She has come to her safe place to recharge for however long she needs. The white halo-like contrast around her head suggests that, here at least, she is whole and pure.

The serpent above her, usually symbolized as evil incarnate, is not depicted as such here. The snake seems calm and glides at a leisurely, casual pace, paying no mind to the woman, and her no mind to it. They are acquaintances who inhabit the land together. There is no ambivalence here.

The woman closes her eyes as she leans down for the refreshing, cool water to soothe her skin. Her eyes being closed symbolizes that she trusts the river; she has no concerns. 

In the water there is a masculine set of eyes gazing upon the woman. He has a strong yet neutral expression, indicating that the river is watching out for the woman as she rests.

 

In figure 5, within the foreground a masculine and muscular figure has his back turned to us. The waves below him push him up and cascade around him, his essence morphing into that of a grand, extravagant bird. It can be said that the man is possibly the personification of the river itself.  The mysticality of the scene can be explained by the woman’s wonder from childhood, as well as cultural storytelling of myths and fables. 

 

In figure 6, we see a more reality-based scene where two men: one in the foreground with a spear in hand, and one in the background, posing gallantly within his canoe. Because this poem is based on Puerto Rico and its culture, it can be assumed that the subjects here are Taino people, indigenous to the area. The man with the spear looks relaxed, standing leisurely in the water of the river, gazing into the glistening stream under an intense sun. Surrounding him is lush vegetation, and a tree that seems to caress him from behind, as if it is embracing him. The vegetation is blooming and stretches towards the sun, and it seems like the man in the background does as well. The men seem to be content and one with their surroundings.

 

In figure 7, the woman appears again. This time, her hair is unruly; the connection, albeit turbid, with the river is more apparent. Her hair and waves thrash as they envelope her, as does the night sky. She caresses a bird with a look of sadness on her face. The bird flaps its wings within her embrace, signifying a struggle and a newfound disconnect between her and nature, presumably due to her adolescence arriving, as mentioned in-verse. The woman is aware of her waning connection and struggles with the fact that her childhood view has changed. The river is no longer a safe, calm place for her. 

In figure 8, we see a horned and hooved man representing the devil; the “faun on the beach that [will] possess [her].” He is sloth, temptation and greed: He sits on a rock, swaying his left leg, twiddling grain in his right hand, and sounding a horn in the other.  The Devil beckons the woman, or taunts her; declaring that the river isn’t sacred any longer. There has been a corruption of the land by external forces; by invaders, colonizers, pollution, the list can go on. 

 

In figure 9, we see the woman overlooking her land. It is dark, baren, and not the same as it once was. The woman doesn’t recognize her home anymore and can’t bear to look. She is solemn and dejected; the last strands of her hair tensing and fighting to stay connected to the land.  

 

In figure 10, we see a dark and depressing view of the river, its stream moving away from us and into the distance where the moon’s glow ignites it. In the foreground is a hard-to distinguish-from-the-night bird. Perhaps a crane or heron, or a depressed mythical creature. It stares out into the darkness, its wings retracted and showing no attempts to fly away. Its hope and freedom too, is gone. 

The verse accompanying the illustration describes the river in various colours: “blue, brown, red.” The river and the moon create blue water and reflect beautifully into a mirror, but violence is painting the water and banks black and red. The downpour of rain mentioned in the poem serve as pathetic fallacy. Violence in society creates danger within the natural-realm. Torrents of water thrash and serge the landscape, dragging anything into its body, changing beautiful water into a dirty monster. 

 

In figure 11, we see the woman and the personification of the river. They embrace each other, howevery their bodies vibrate due to their hatch marks; it’s as if the two are losing their grasp on each other physically and symbolically. Their relationship has changed, and it isn’t as pure and solid anymore. However, their figures still, albeit cautiously flow into the shape of the river, and then discretely into a large bird. A wing is subtlety outstretched, signifying that although things aren’t what they once were, there is strength and courage. The longing embrace and morphology of the figures is a sentimental thought from the poet as she reflects on her history with the river as she grew up. 

 

In the final figure of the portfolio, there is an emphasis on the expression from the woman. She displays her years on her face, bags prominent and distrust in her brows. She stares at us, beaten yet full of fight. In the poem she addresses the river, mourning for their connection. In-verse she cries about how much Puerto Rico has changed for her and her people. Childhood wonder, lush ecosystems and culture has been tainted. 
 The woman’s hair links gently to the river and the belly-up bird. It’s a solemn reminder that her people are tied to the land, but its connection is now jaded and brittle. Freedom has died, and the vegetation from their beloved land is laid by its feet. 

 

Alicea chose to forgo colour in these pieces because of the political essence of the poem, as he had previously opted for with other political works. The lack of colour in these illustrations symbolizes the grief, trauma and bittersweetness of the poet’s words. Colour is often employed to express emotions, positive and negative, but black and white is suffocating consuming.

The maroonish text brings some pop of colour into the portfolio, and strongly resembles dried blood, or clay of the land. In both cases, that colour has been strongly present in Puerto Rico.