Throughout these 15 illustrated pages, the curator and researcher José Ignacio Herrera (b. 1956) gathers information that is valuable to our understanding of the development of printing in Venezuela. Herrera gives a detailed description of the events that occurred around the arrival of the first printing press, as well as its ties to the Venezuelan independence movement. The extensive list of the persons involved both with this first stage of Venezuelan printing and with the development of the press and illustrated magazines is very useful for research into this matter. The document is illustrated with a set of images taken from magazines published in the early nineteenth century. Several times during this long article, Herrera cites Pedro Grases (1909–2004) and Felipe Márquez, who have addressed this matter extensively. Summaries and accessible writing are the main characteristics of this document, which offers both a wealth of information and a key starting point for research on the history of printmaking in Venezuela. Moreover, Herrera extends bridges between the evolution of printing and the beginnings of the graphic arts, which developed independently in Venezuela. The writer comments on the art books (“beautiful books”) published by Luisa Zuloaga de Palacios (1923–90). In his opinion, “with this approach, printing recovered its old communicative function, perhaps forgotten by the more artistic and expressive language of the contemporary print.” Highlighting the original lithograph stones from the late nineteenth century that belonged to Litografía y Tipografía del Comercio, the curator indicated their location at the Taller de Artistas Gráficos Asociados (TAGA). TAGA was one of the main centers where contemporary printmaking was developed. Many of these stones represent the initiation of young adults into lithography, with which Herrera proposes a link (speculative but interesting) between the nineteenth-century graphic tradition (heir of the commercial printing press) and the twentieth-century print.
[Regarding TAGA, see in the ICAA digital archive by Bélgica Rodríguez “El TAGA: un sueño de verdad” (doc. no. 1068980); by Zuleiva Vivas “La Huella del grabado” (doc. no. 1101476); the newspaper articles written by Mara Comerlati “El TAGA le ofrece al artista la libertad de crear” (doc. no. 1101412), “Los mejores grabados de Elisa Elvira Zuloaga” (doc. no. 1080981), and “El TAGA aspira a ser la casa del artista gráfico venezolano” (doc. no. 1081133); by Juan Carlos Palenzuela “Atelier huella” (doc. no. 1101460); by Juan Calzadilla “Las pruebas materiales del TAGA” (doc. no. 1069019); and by L. B. S. “Creado el taller de artistas gráficos: en la dimensión de la Venezuela verdadera” (doc. no. 1081157)].