José R. Alicea (Ponce, PR, b. 1928) is a printmaker, poster artist, graphic designer, and teacher. He studied printmaking under Lorenzo Homar at the Taller de Gráfica [Print Workshop] at the Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña [Puerto Rican Cultural Institute] (ICP), where he later worked as Homar’s assistant. He began teaching printmaking at the ICP’s Escuela de Artes Plásticas [School of Visual Arts] in 1965. In 1979, the IV Bienal de San Juan del Grabado Latinoamericano y del Caribe [Fourth San Juan Biennial of Latin American and Caribbean Prints] honored him at the exhibition presented at the Museo del Grabado Latinoamericano [Museum of Latin American Prints], home of the Casa de los Contrafuertes [House of Buttresses] in Old San Juan, from May 25 through August 31. The exhibition included 135 of his works. Eugenio Fernández Méndez (Cayey, 1924–1994) was a journalist, writer, and professor at the University of Puerto Rico (UPR). As a young man he studied economics at the UPR, then went on to study anthropology at Columbia University in New York. His writings reflect a profound interest in the question of Puerto Rican identity, as can be seen in his books Unidad y esencia del ethos puertorriqueño [Unity and Gist of the Puerto Rican Ethos] (1954), Crónicas de Puerto Rico [Puerto Rican Chronicles] (1958), among many others, including the essay “La identidad y la cultura" [Identity and Culture] (1965), published in a variety of Puerto Rican newspapers and magazines. He was devoted to his studies and, as a member of the Academia Puertorriqueña de la Lengua Española [Puerto Rican Academy of the Spanish Language], he cultivated an excellent writing style. From 1955 to 1964 he was chairman of the board of directors of the Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña [ICP, Puerto Rican Cultural Institute]. In 1976 he published his views on the world of the arts in Las artes plásticas [The Visual Arts] and El primitivismo haitiano [Haitian Primitivism].