Lorenzo Homar writes to the Colombian artist Pedro Alcántara to congratulate him on being awarded the Berlin Intergraphic Festival Prize. Homar asks Alcántara to refer to the notes he includes in his letter and read them to the artists who attended the workshop Homar presented in Cali. In his notes, Homar says that at a workshop—regardless of whether invited foreign artists are involved— it is important that the works be produced by the participants themselves. He adds that Virginia Anaya’s was unquestionably the best work in the portfolio that took the prize (in Berlin) in his opinion. After discussing the political situation in Puerto Rico, Homar mentions the article on Puerto Rican art written by the Argentine Marta Traba, who referred to Homar as “an artist with poor taste.”

Lorenzo Homar (San Juan, 1913–2004) met Pedro Alcántara (Cali, b. 1942) while he was in San Juan for his exhibition at the Galería El Morro (Dibujos y monotipos [Drawings and Monotypes], December 4, 1970), and for the Primera Bienal de San Juan del Grabado Latinoamericano [First San Juan Biennial of Latin American Prints] (1970). Alcántara later spent some time at Homar’s workshop, where he began producing silkscreen prints, and the two artists became close friends. In 1972, the directors of the Museo La Tertulia in Cali, Colombia, invited Homar to teach a course on silkscreen printing to a group of local artists. The workshop lasted ten days, during which time Pedro Alcántara, Enrique Grau, and Phanor León created the silkscreens that were included in the portfolio produced by Cartón de Colombia that year. Alcántara then began to develop plans to establish a permanent workshop under Homar’s guidance. Homar returned to Cali in 1976 to oversee the printing of the portfolio “Primera colección de grabado” [First Print Collection], published by the Graphic Arts Workshop of the MA [Museum of Modern Art], La Tertulia. On August 23, 1974, Alcántara exhibited a collection of prints, created between 1964 and 1974, at the Museo de Grabado Latinoamericano [Museum of Latin American Prints] at the Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña [Puerto Rican Cultural Institute]. Homar designed and printed the poster for the show.“Las artes plásticas en Puerto Rico” [The Visual Arts in Puerto Rico] by Marta Traba was published in Ínsula, Revista Bibliográfica de Ciencias y Letras [Bibliographical Magazine of Science and Letters], nos. 356­–57 (1970): 8–9.