Antonio Rodríguez Luna was invited to sit on the jury of the I Bienal Interamericana de Pintura y Grabado [First Inter-American Biennial of Paintings and Prints] a few days after the exhibition opened. He was picked as the arbiter who would cast the tiebreaker vote in the event of a tie. The Spanish painter, a nationalized Mexican, considered the works exhibited to be unmistakable examples of pictorial art. There was a strong representation of Abstract works and a very modest showing of Figurative paintings. In spite of the disproportionate ratio between the two trends, Rodríguez Luna agreed to sit on the jury—but as a member rather than an arbiter. He claimed that his vote would challenge Abstract art which, in his opinion, was empty and incapable of expressing human sensitivity since art should ennoble life and mankind. He therefore sided with humanist art and voted for Francisco Goitia.    

Antonio Rodríguez Luna (1910-85), the painter from Córdoba, Spain, originally came to Mexico as an exile. At the time of the exhibition he had lived in Mexico for twenty years and had become a Mexican citizen. He was also teaching at the Academia de San Carlos and had trained several young painters. Rodríguez Luna was actually grateful for the hospitality he had been shown in Mexico, where a second home was found. That is why, though he considered it unfair, he did not protest while learning that he had not been invited to show his paintings. He thought he should have declined the belated invitation to sit on the jury since he was, in fact, being used to silence dissenting voices. Vis-à-vis the debate between Figuration and Abstraction, Rodríguez Luna also took a confusing position as regards the meaning of Abstract art, which he considered dehumanized and overly aesthetic. Rodríguez Luna said that he “could not accept a poor art that had no specific purpose . . . that was all games or clumsy intellectual maneuvers that might surprise us for a moment but could never move us deeply nor stimulate the least of our feelings since it lacks the eternal fuel, the naked flame of the human soul.” Miguel Álvarez Acosta, director of the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes [INBA, National Institute of Fine Arts] (1954-58) and Miguel Salas Anzures, head of the Visual Arts Department (1957-1961) of the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Arte y Literatura [INBAL, National Institute of Fine Arts and Literature] organized the two Biennials at the Museo Nacional de Artes Plásticas (Palacio de Bellas Artes). The First Biennial (June 6-September 30, 1958) consisted of four exhibition—tributes of works by José Clemente Orozco, Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros, and the Brazilian artist Candido Portinari. There was widespread dissatisfaction during this Biennial due to the organization and to the meddling with the jury on behalf of the Frente Nacional de Artes Plásticas [National Visual Arts Front]. On the occasion of theSecond Biennial in 1960 many artists, such as José Luis Cuevas, Francisco Icaza, and Arnold Belkin, among others, refused to participate in protest against the incarceration of Siqueiros in Lecumberri, the Mexico City jail.The following countries participated in both Biennials: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Chile, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Puerto Rico, United States, and Venezuela.The official and most commonly used name for the Biennial was “Bienal Interamericana de Pintura y Grabado” [Inter-American Biennial of Paintings and Prints], though it was also called “Bienal de Artes Plásticas” [Visual Arts Biennial], and “Bienal Panamericana de Pintura” [Pan-American Biennial of Painting], among other coinages.