This text by Gabriel García Márquez published in the weekly cultural supplement to the Cali-based newspaper El Pueblo is the prologue to the portfolio Graficario de la Lucha popular en Colombia (1977). In his critical analysis of ways of disguising history, García Márquez mentions three cases: the Chronicles of the Indies (accounts by colonizers), the 19th-century prints of European travelers in the Americas, and the official histories written in textbooks. The chronicles of the discovery and the conquest of the Americas were influenced, in the writer’s view, by the conquistadores’ astonishment before the natural beauty and exoticism of the newly discovered lands. The graphic works of 19th-century travelers to the Americas, on the other hand, evidence a fantastic vision of reality. In closing, García Márquez invites the reader to learn about Colombian history—which has been “marked by social injustice above all else”—through the committed vision of the painters, printmakers, and caricaturists of different generations and styles gathered in this edition of Graficario.

This prologue by Colombian writer and journalist Gabriel García Márquez (b. 1927) is a key text in the history of the portfolios published by the Taller Corporación Prográfica of Cali (1977-1987), a group directed by artist Pedro Alcántara (b. 1942) and cultural manager Maria Eudoxia Arango. The prologue to Graficario de la lucha popular en Colombia—thefirst portfolio put out by the Taller Corporación Prográfica—was published in the weekly cultural supplement to El Pueblo newspaper. In the words of the author, this portfolio brought together artists of different generations and hence provided “excellent proof of historical consciousness.” This text evidences the friendship and commitment to leftwing political movements that bound the editors of the portfolio and contributors to it, like García Márquez and critic and art historian Álvaro Medina (b. 1942).  

The Taller Corporación Prográfica’s graphic art project engaged the sociopolitical reality of Colombia in an endeavor both communicational and commercial. In the specific case of Graficario, the portfolio brought together works by well established artists and texts of a literary and of an academic bent (prologue by García Márquez and introduction by Medina) in a commercial initiative also concerned with recording the Colombian art scene. The sales strategies were launched in 1977, and the following year the project was announced at artistic and press-related events involving, for instance, the Cali-based newspaper El Pueblo. In the years that the Prográfica was active, there were a number of printing workshops in Colombia that reflected the growing importance of that medium, among them Taller Giangrandi directed by artist Umberto Giangrandi (b. 1942); Taller La Huella overseen by Juan Manuel Lugo; Taller Arte Dos Gráfico directed by Luis Ángel Parra; Taller 250 under artist Ana Mercedes Hoyos (b. 1942); Taller de Grabado under artist Luis Paz (b. 1937); and the Arte Serial under artist Hugo Zapata (b. 1945).  

Gabriel García Márquez, awarded the Nobel Prize in literature in 1982, studied law and journalism at the Universidad Nacional of Colombia. In 1948 and 1949, he wrote for the Cartagena-based newspaper El Universal and, from 1950 to 1952, for the Barranquilla-based newspaper El Heraldo. He formed part of what was called the Grupo de Barranquilla, a group of well known writers and artists who resided in Barranquilla and frequented La Librería Mundo and La Cueva bar. In the fifties, García Márquez worked as a reporter for the newspaper El Espectador. In 1960, after the triumph of the Cuban Revolution, he published his articles in Prensa Latina, an agency created by the Cuban government. In 1987, García Márquez’s work in journalism was published in a number of volumes compiled by French literary critic Jacques Gilard, a scholar of the Grupo de Barranquilla in general and of the work of García Márquez in particular.