In the first part of his essay on graphic designer Gerd Leufert, writer Gabriel Rodríguez provides a historical overview from the advent of the first printers in Venezuela to the arrival of Leufert in the country in 1951, a watershed after which it is possible to speak of “graphic design” as a discipline in the country. The second part of the text discusses Leufert’s career, which the author ties to key moments in his life. Rodríguez places emphasis on the artist as a person wholly dedicated to his craft. It is owing to that sustained commitment, as well as to talent, that Leufert was able to “establish a [graphic] tradition,” something that in Rodríguez’s view, must be done in other fields as well. 

While the focus of this essay by Argentine writer Gabriel Rodríguez (b. 1941), who lives in Venezuela, is Gerd Leufert (1914–98) and his importance as a pioneering figure and teacher of graphic design in Venezuela, the text sheds light on other topics as well. As a worker, creator, and visionary, the Lithuanian designer’s approach to his field was didactic and his ongoing influence as a teacher and museologist considerable. “The close collaboration [between Leufert and Miguel Arroyo, the director of the Museo de Bellas Artes de Caracas at the time] gave rise to a cohesive body of work that illustrates Leufert’s double process of maturation both as an artist and as a designer whose work in various quick and shifting stages changed the panorama of the visual arts.”

Rodríguez mentions as well Leufert’s friendship with other designers and artists, such as Nedo, Alvaro Sotillo (Leufert was his teacher), and Gego, his companion during the years he spent in Venezuela. With them, he engaged in intellectual and professional exchange. According to Rodríguez, Leufert was also close to Alfredo Armas Alfonso and other writers. Rodríguez’s essay also discusses Leufert’s influence on contemporary painters and the admiration he inspired in Kinetic artists like Alejandro Otero and Carlos Cruz-Diez. 

The text provides valuable historical information on the first printers and books published in Venezuela. It describes what the field was like in the past, when a single person performed a great many tasks, acting as an editor, designer, and printer. Rodríguez explains that the year 1937 was a turning point in Venezuela due to the reform of the Escuela de Bellas Artes and to the creation of its graphic arts department at the initiative of painter and educator Pedro Ángel González. These changes lay the foundations for the advent of graphic design in the country. 

Crucial to Rodriguez’s essay is his appreciation of Gerd Leufert’s ethical stance in the field of arts and crafts, an attitude which the author claims, is one of the key components of “Leufert’s teachings.”