In this document, the Club de Grabado de Montevideo (CGM, founded in 1953) announces that it has purchased a property to be used as its headquarters. The text provides an overview of the club’s achievements and outlines its aims, among them purchasing a printer, increasing the size of the student body, and engaging in research on the scope of printmaking. Like other documents put out by the club, this one is illustrated with woodcuts; released in 1971, it attests to the political atmosphere prior to the 1973 coup, which ushered in the military dictatorship.

In response to the urgent need to settle in a new location, the Club de Grabado de Montevideo (1953–92) issued this statement that explains the social importance of its work in culture and assesses its achievements to date. At the time this document was released, the club had been in existence for eighteen years; it had three thousand five hundred members and an average of ten to fifteen students each year. Notwithstanding, this document outlines unmet needs and ongoing aspirations (a larger number of students, its own gallery space, the ability to do research on the printmaking medium, among others) as it calls for public support. The document’s appeal is clearly ideological when, regarding its relationship to like institutions, it states, “The club must be at the core of the independent art movement […].” The words “core” and “movement” had a marked political meaning in 1971, as did the word “independent.” Indeed, that word described a whole cultural system that began in the 1920s and peaked in the sixties only to virtually disappear in 1973, when the military coup led to a dictatorship that dismantled institutions and cultural circuits built over the course of some five decades. 

[For further reading see, in the ICAA digital archive, the following documents published by the Club de Grabado de Montevideo: “Concurso de grabado para edición” (doc. no. 863481), “13 años de actividad de Club de Grabado de Montevideo” (doc. no. 1183571), “El arte correo en el Uruguay” (doc. no. 1191850), “Boletín N° 7 Club de Grabado de Montevideo” (doc. no. 1182833), “Club de Grabado de Montevideo 22 Aniversario 1953 - Agosto 1975” (doc. no. 1183514), “Club de Grabado de Montevideo a la población de Montevideo” (doc. no. 1183124), “Cuando el Tercer Mundo se mira a sí mismo. II Bienal de La Habana” (doc. no. 1184459), “De los grabados de ayer a las ediciones actuales” (doc. no. 1191787), “Definiciones / Uno” (doc. no. 1189065), “Entrevista a Luis Mazzey” (doc. no. 1186991), “Entrevista a Óscar Ferrando” (doc. no. 1186747), “Entrevista a Óscar Ferrando [segunda parte]” (doc. no. 1186802), “Fundamentos a propósito de su 22 aniversario” (doc. no. 1182640), “Mini Grabado Internacional de Cadaqués. España” (doc. no. 1191135), “La necesidad de la imaginación” (doc. no. 1190793), “Nuestra institución” (doc. no. 1182010), “Los nuevos movimientos de las artes” (doc. no. 1182868), “Opiniones (I)” (doc. no. 1185411), “Palabras de clausura para un año de apertura” (doc. no. 1191167), “Referencias sobre identidad, cultura y arte en Latinoamérica” (doc. no. 1183641), “Reflexiones en torno a la supuesta crisis de las artes plásticas” (doc. no. 1185539), and “Sobre el papel de la crítica” (doc. no. 1187071)].