The series of aphorisms entitled “Análisis de la suma” (1973) was published in the catalogue for the exhibition “Omar Rayo: Pintura, grabado, dibujo” at the Museo de Arte Moderno in Chapultepec, in the Mexican capital (September/October 1973). Taken together, these ideas written by the painter and printmaker Omar Rayo (1928–2010) summarize the precepts that govern his work. This document is particularly important since Rayo rarely wrote texts explaining his work; in this case, he also turned to important writers to comment on his work. They included both the Mexican writer, Juan García Ponce (1932–2003), whose text appears in the catalogue, as well as the Peruvian art critic and theoretician based in Mexico, Juan Acha (1916−95). Around 1947, Rayo began his professional art work, doing drawings for and illustrating newspapers and magazines in Bogotá. Between 1959 and 1960, he participated in the Taller de la Universidad Iberoamericana (Mexico City). During that short time, supported by a scholarship granted by the Organization of American States (OAS), Rayo studied the graphic arts in great depth under the tutelage of Guillermo Silva Sanz de Santamaría (1921–2007). Upon his arrival in New York (1960), his intaglios of concrete objects such as running shoes, a tube of toothpaste or a handsaw began to be the hallmarks of his work. Subsequently, the Colombian artist would execute a long series of graphic artworks that brought him great recognition. Based on that work, he began to explore optical movement through representation of an illusory tridimensionality, a kind of trompe l’œil. Rayo ended up living in New York from 1960 to 1986. The small town of Roldanillo (Department of Valle del Cauca) gave him a piece of land in 1973, in recognition of a prize he won at the São Paulo Biennial (1971). The artist used the land to found the Museo Rayo de Dibujo y Grabado Latinoamericano in 1981. Rayo’s work was shown in exhibitions regularly starting in 1948, receiving prizes and honorable mentions in important national and international art events. These included the XVIII Salón de Artistas Nacionales (1966), the I Bienal de Grabado Latinoamericano en San Juan (in San Juan, Puerto Rico, 1970), and the XXI Salón de Artistas Nacionales (1970). He also won a Guggenheim Fellowship (1977−78).