The Documentary Legacy of the Association of Women Artists of Puerto Rico

This online exhibition features a selection of historical documents contained in the Collection of the Association of Women Artists of Puerto Rico donated to the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Puerto Rico for its custody, conservation and dissemination. This organization was founded in 1983 in order to promote female creation in the visual arts in Puerto Rico. It includes newspaper clippings, correspondence, photos, essays and other documents generated from its inception in 1983 until its dissolution in 1996. The exhibition is accompanied by audio interventions of some of the artists and art critics who were part of the Association.

The Association of Women Artists of Puerto Rico grouped together painters, sculptors, filmmakers, cartoonists, engravers, ceramists, photographers, historians, and women dedicated to art criticism. Its purpose was to promote the professional and personal development of the Puerto Rican woman artist as well as to foster unity of action among the group of women who worked in the arts.

The images in this exhibition document the administrative and programmatic work of an association that gave visibility to the Puerto Rican woman artist and that served as a platform to advance new proposals. Its foundation, in a decade that was characterized by the formation of guilds, associations, brotherhoods and even the creation of a Museum of Contemporary Art, opened doors for them and placed them in the foreground, leaving behind the invisibility to which they were exposed.

During the years that the association was active, various exhibitions were presented both in Puerto Rico and abroad. New York, Santo Domingo and Washington D.C. hosted some of them. Forums, practical professional training workshops, congresses and interviews were held and published in various newspapers in the country and abroad.

The Association of Women Artists of Puerto Rico took part in the broader feminist movement of the country through its relationship with the Red Encuentro de Mujeres which brought together the feminist groups of that time. In addition, the association supported the Cerdos de oro [Golden Pigs], an event organized by Feministas en Marcha that consisted of satirical awards given to the producers of content deemed as "machista" or misogynist and derogatory towards women

Their first exhibition was at the Plaza las Américas shopping center in Hato Rey, Puerto Rico in 1983. That same year they exhibited at the Cayman Gallery in New York with an exhibition that traveled to various cities in the United States, and at the Museum of Fine Arts of San Juan with the group show "Holding Hands".

In 1986, "Mujeres Artistas de Puerto Rico" was presented at the Museum of Fine Arts of the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture and "Growing Beyond: Women Artists from Puerto Rico" at the Art Museum of the Americas, of the Organization of American States in Washington D.C. in 1988.

In 1990, "Leading Female Artists of the Eighties" was exhibited at the Museo de las Casas Reales in Santo Domingo and at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Puerto Rico. This exhibition obtained the Arawak Honor Palette and the AICA Chapter of Puerto Rico conferred them the prizes for Best Exhibition of Puerto Rico Abroad and Best Catalog 1990.

Letter from Rosa Irigoyen to women artists about the opening of the exhibition at the Barranquitas Cultural Center. June 1991.

Letter from Rosa Irigoyen to Dr. María Emilia Somoza about the possibility of presenting the exhibition Our Self Portrait at the Museum of Contemporary Art. November 5, 1990

Draft of a letter from Mercedes Quiñones to Julia Platt inviting her to participate as curator in the exhibition Our Self Portrait. January 1992.

List of works participating in the exhibition Our Self portrait. The list includes details of prices and measurements of the works.

Handwritten letter addressed to María Emilia "Miyuca" Somoza, then director of the Museum of Contemporary Art of Puerto Rico, regarding the exhibition Our Self Portrait. It offers details about the curators and writers that will be involved. The draft includes an error in Somoza's name. June 6 1992.

Another important exhibition, and the first to be curated by a group of experts in art criticism, was Our Self Portrait, the Woman Artist and the Self-Image in a Multicultural Context that was presented at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Puerto Rico in 1992 and at the Ponce Art Museum in 1993. This was accompanied by a series of lectures that sought to open the discussion around the then new issue of inclusion. Published in 1993, the book "Nuestro Autorretrato" collects the writings of the curators and the texts of the speakers.

Press release for the exhibition Our Self Portrait. 1992.

This collection of documents belonging to the Association of Women Artists gathers these experiences through letters, bulletins, press clippings, photographs and audiovisual documents. Their efforts to obtain sponsorships for the exhibitions, exchanges with art critics, their link with similar organizations and feminists, as well as news related to Puerto Rican art and culture in general are also documented.

Letter from Betsy Padín to Jaime Fonalledas dated May 17, 1989 requesting the sponsorship of Plaza las Américas to present an exhibition at the Modern Art Gallery of the Dominican Republic. It also offers details about the help the shopping center has provided the association in the past.

Press article in the Por Dentro magazine of El Nuevo Día newspaper about Sylvia Blanco that addresses aspects of her family life, her professional training and her artistic career. In the photos you can see the ceramist during her creative process.

Press article in the Por Dentro magazine of El Nuevo Día newspaper about "Lunas...", an exhibition by Toni Hambleton presented at Casa Candina in 1990.

Thirteen years after its foundation, the group ceased operations and dissolved in 1996. The struggles to make space, to gain credibility and to position their work in the country's exhibition centers was successful. Research and study of these documents is vital to understand that struggle and to discover those stories that were never told.

Press article "Topografía del ánimo" by Ernesto Ruiz de la Mata, about Marilyn Torrech's exhibition at the Liga Estudiantes de Arte de San Juan, 1990