This is a brief letter from the writer Alberto Valdivia Portugal to Caretas magazine about the first prize recently awarded at the painting competition organized by the Festivales de Ancón. After (apparently) congratulating the winner, Luis Zevallos Hetzel, the reader reports that the winning work—Motociclista No. 3, which he incorrectly refers to as El Motociclista—is in fact an exact copy of an advertisement that appeared in Hot-Rod, the North American motor magazine (June 1968, page 91). On a personal note, he adds: “Unless originality was not an essential requisite.” In its reply, the Lima magazine explains that the work in question is a piece of Pop Art, a style which, “far from making any pretense at originality, is almost always a copy of ordinary objects such as cans of food, national flags, and even real people and places.” In the magazine’s opinion, his complaint is justified because “Zevallos has added nothing to the design of the advertisement.”

This brief letter sparked the great debate over the first prize for painting awarded by the jury at the Festivales de Ancón in 1969. Luis Zevallos Hetzel, who was awarded the prize, 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 controversial reactions and other factors subsequently led him to stop experimenting with innovative styles.

The jury’s 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 local art scene in the 1960s. 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 contest went to a (playfully erotic Pop) 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 Pop Art’s role and function in 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 military regime led by General Juan Velasco Alvarado.

[For additional information, see the following articles in the ICAA digital archive: by Augusto Ortiz de Zevallos “El caso de Luis Zevallos” (doc. no. 1142139), “Arte Actual: El pop y un artículo” (doc. no. 1142347), and “En Ancón: significativa muestra insignificante” (doc. no. 1142364); (anonymous) “Opiniones divididas motivó el debate sobre pintor Zevallos” (doc. no. 1142269); by Emilio Hernández Saavedra “A propósito del ‘plagio’” (doc. no. 1142331); and by Luis Rey de Castro “Pintor Pop Plagia por Premio” (doc. no. 1142397)].