This lengthy newspaper article reports on the results of the painting competition organized by the Festivales de Ancón (a resort on the outskirts of Lima). This event is spotlighted as proof of the “popularity of the visual arts in Peru (…) that shows that our interests are au courant,” with an emphasis on the “spirit of the period.” Among the “various types of expression” reviewed, a great deal of attention is focused on the winning work, Motociclista No. 3, a Pop Art composition by Luis Zevallos Hetzel. The article also highlights the second prize, awarded to Jaime Davila for his “hard-edge” treatment of George Harrison, one of the Beatles. Other works that received honorable mentions are also reviewed, such as the constructivist work by Ciro Palacios and an erotic Pop Art painting by Hugo Camandona.    

This review was part of the grand controversy that erupted over the First Prize for Painting at the Festivales de Ancón in 1969, one of the events that marked both the peak and the turning point for the Peruvian cosmopolitan avant-garde in the local art scene in the 1960s. Members of the jury for the festival included the critic and gallerist Élida Román and the architect Luis Miró Quesada Garland, both of whom were representatives of the Instituto de Arte Contemporáneo; the collector Luis Carlos Rodrigo Mazure, representing the Casino Náutico de Ancón; Carlos Aitor Castillo, representing the Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes; and the collector Sara de Lavalle, representing the Art Board at the Museo de Arte de Lima. 

The jury decision concerning the first prize (for painting) at the Festivales de Ancón in 1969 was extremely controversial and marked both the peak and the turning point for the Peruvian cosmopolitan avant-garde in the 1960s local art scene. At that time, Ancón was the most fashionable resort on the outskirts of Lima. During the summer it hosted musical and theatrical events, as well as lectures and a painting competition which (on that occasion) attracted a great deal of attention. When the results were announced, Caretas magazine published a letter accusing the winning painting—Motociclista No. 3, by Luis Zevallos Hetzel—of plagiarism because it was a “faithful copy” of an advertisement published in the United States for a brand of motorcycles. An honorable mention at the competition went to a (playfully erotic Pop Art) painting by Ugo Camandona, an Italian painter and ceramicist who lived in Peru, who was also accused of supposed plagiarism. Both accusations sparked a heated debate about the value of “originality” in modern art, and about the role and function of Pop Art within consumer society. The apparent anachronism underlying the controversy clearly revealed the very limited penetration of avant-garde ideologies that had been achieved in a cultural milieu that was still reluctant to embrace the radical transformations that art was already experiencing in the rest of the world. All this was taking place in an environment that was increasingly having to adjust to the socialist and nationalist policies of the Gobierno Revolucionario de las Fuerzas Armadas (1968–75), the Revolutionary Government of the Armed Forces led by General Juan Velasco Alvarado.
  
Zevallos was one of the pioneers of Pop Art in Peru, and was a member of Arte Nuevo, one of the avant-garde groups at that time. But the uproar over the Festivales de Ancón controversy and other factors related to the ensuing scandal subsequently led him to stop experimenting with innovative styles.