Gloria Valencia Diago, a journalist for Bogota-based newspaper El Tiempo, describes the Salón Panamericano de Artes Gráficas (November-December 1970) as “the best part” of the X Festival de Arte of Cali (1970). She informs the public that the works in the show will be exhibited at the Museo de Arte Moderno of Bogota in February 1971 and that, also in 1971, the exhibition will become the Bienal Americana de Artes Gráficas (to be held in July of that year). The Salón Panamericano de Artes Gráficas, which was sponsored by Cartón de Colombia, a private company, included a wide range of artists from Latin America. Valencia Diago explains that the event began three years earlier as an addition to the Festival de Arte of Cali; at that point, it included only the drawing and print media. Maritza Uribe de Urdinola, director of the Museo de Arte Moderno La Tertulia (in Cali), and Gustavo Pérez, president of Cartón de Colombia, were the ones who conceived of changing the exhibition into a biennial, a change that Valencia Diago believes will constitute a major contribution to the VI Pan American Games to be held in Cali.

This article by Colombian journalist Gloria Valencia Diago provides a detailed description of the transformation of the Exposición Panamericana de Artes Gráficas into the I Bienal Americana de Artes Gráficas, a major event in graphic arts in Latin America. According to the event’s catalogue, the exact name of what Valencia Diago calls the Salón Panamericano de Artes Gráficas was the Exposición Panamericana de Artes Gráficas (Cali, November-December 1970). The event was organized by the Museo de Arte Moderno La Tertulia of Cali, in conjunction with Cartón de Colombia, a private company, seven months before the VI Pan American Games were held in that city. 

The drawing and print exhibition that Valencia Diago calls the precursor to the Exposición Panamericana de Artes Gráficas was the Primer Salón Austral y Colombiano de Dibujo y Grabado (1968), organized by La Tertulia in the context of the VIII Festival de Arte of Cali. A work by Colombian draftsman Luis Caballero (1963-95) earned a prize at that event. Both the Primer Salón Austral y Colombiano de Dibujo y Grabado and the I Salón Nacional de Diseño Gráfico (1969)—sponsored by Cartón de Colombia—are considered precursors to the Exposición Panamericana de Artes Gráficas and, of course, to the I Bienal de Artes Gráficas.

Each of the events’ organizing bodies has a long history in the city of Cali. In 1956, Maritza Uribe de Urdinola founded the Club Cultural La Tertulia with a group of individuals interested in exchanging ideas on politics, society and culture; in 1968, that club became what is now known as the Museo de Arte Moderno La Tertulia. The headquarters of the multinational corporation Cartón de Colombia, which was founded on May 4, 1944, is in the outskirts of Cali. It makes use of resources and raw material from Colombia to produce paper and cardboard packages.

The members of the selection jury at the Salón Panamericano de Artes Gráficas were Sadajiro Kubo, president of the Japan chapter of the International Association of Art Critics; Lorenzo Homar, an eminent Puerto Rican printmaker; Peter Milton, a printmaker from the United States; Juan Antonio Roda, a Spanish painter; and Pedro Alcántara, a Colombian draftsman and printmaker who would introduce Homar’s teachings [in Colombia]. One hundred and twenty Latin American artists participated in the Exposición Panamericana de Artes Gráficas, and prizes in the drawing category were awarded to Rodolfo Abularach (Guatemala), Simón Gouverneur (Venezuela), Darío Morales (Colombia), and Lucy Tejada (Colombia); in the print category to Miguel Bresciano (Uruguay), Leonel Góngora (Colombia), Alfonso Quijano Acero (Colombia), and Luis  A. Solari (Uruguay); in the graphic design category to Edgar Agudelo, Alfredo Izquierdo, Luciano Jaramillo, and Rómulo Polo Flórez (all from Colombia).