In a footnote, José A. Torres Martinó informs that Marta Traba (1930–1983) was employed by the Universidad de Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus, to lecture on Latin American art in the Fine Arts Department of the School of Humanities. Her contract was for two semesters, starting in August 1970, since she was serving as a substitute for Dr. Arturo Dávila, the head of that department, who was on sabbatical. In the summer of 1971, Traba taught a course on aesthetics. At the end of that summer, the university authorities decided not to renew the contract of either Marta Traba or her husband, Dr. Angel Rama, a Uruguayan professor of literature. The chancellor of the Río Piedras Campus at the time was Dr. Pedro José Rivera, while the chairman of the Board of Higher Education was Dr. Ramón Mellado Parsons.When Traba came to San Juan, Puerto Rico, she had lived in Bogotá, New York, Paris, and Buenos Aires. During her stay in Puerto Rico, Traba wrote books and many newspaper and journal articles in which she set forth her position on Puerto Rican art. As is broadly known, her writings stirred up numerous debates and widespread criticism within the Puerto Rican art community.
José A. Torres Martinó (Ponce, born 1916) is considered the ideological leader of the generation born in the 1950s in Puerto Rico. As such, he was among those who defended the creation of an autonomous artistic movement in Puerto Rico. He also played an active role as arts educator and promoter of the graphic arts. In 1969, he founded and taught at the Taller de Diseño Gráfico [Graphic Design Workshop] de la Escuela de Arquitectura de la Universidad de Puerto Rico. Working with the artist Myrna Báez, he founded the Hermandad de Artistas Gráficos de Puerto Rico in 1981. The reason for organizing this group of artists was to protest against government intervention in cultural matters at the time.