Lorenzo Homar

Sgt. Everett Gould, Fitchburg, Mass.
Homar 44 New Guinea
"By his looks and playing, I'd say he belongs with Hackett at Nick's"
(Pen and ink, watercolor, pencil on paper)





Sgt. Homar
Convoy to Philippines
-44
"H" minus "5 or 6". G.I's last shower + shave with (modern conveniences)? before landing
(charcoal on paper)





Sgt Larry Homar
"Hollanchia"
New Guinea / 44
Cpt. Ernest Hughes of Los Angeles, Calif, veteran of Nassau Bay and ?Tambin Beach (?Salamana Campaign) Lae, Finschhaffen(?) and Hollanchia. Still unscathed after four campaigns and yet his loader, Pfc Barnett of Youngstown, Ohio was wounded on this mission, his first.
(charcoal on paper)

Los Renegados: Bats
(woodcut, 1963)

Book illustration IN:
'The Three Wishes; a Collection of Puerto RicanFolktales'
by Ricardo E. Alegria, 1969.[Amazon]

Acróbata Marroquí
{Moroccan Acrobats}
(Linocut, 1958)

Cartier brooch design [Platinum setting with diamonds, swordfish motif]
(Pencil, gouache on paper, ~1937)

Cartier brooch design [Platinum setting with blue topaz and cascading diamonds]
(Pencil, gouache on paper, ~1937)

Cartier earring designs [Six designs with sapphires, diamonds, and gold]
(Pencil, gouache on paper, 1937)

Inglés, muchachos, más Inglés!
{English, boys, more English}
ITT - Marisol - Culebra - Miami - Miss Universo
(Gouache on board, 1970)

You answer, Mr. Morales
(Pen and ink, gouache on paper. Undated.)

Composición Atonal
(Pen and ink on paper, 1962)

John Kennedy, Spanish ?Head of State*, Pablo Casals, Dean Rusk, General Franco
*Almost certainly it is Luis Muñoz Marín, Governor of Puerto Rico.

Festival Casals [Studies for posters, conductor designs (one orange, one red)]
(Pastel on paper, 1957)

Pablo Casals [wikipedia]
(lithograph, 1955)

Inscribed in ink along right margin: Offset lithography BUT: The experiment went like this: I silkscreen black ink over an acetate sheet (clear). Then, over a light table I scratched this head of Don Pablo thus making a negative. When exposed over a sensitized offset zinc plate the positive was created. Therefore it is really an original print being that the transfer was not photographic. I drew with only my own pencil sketch for a model which was done mostly from memory. Casals as yet had not arrived in P.R. No photos available only a small program from Prades. Front view about the size of a dime

Orquesta Sinfónica de Puerto Rico, dirección de Victor Tevah
(Poster, 1965)

Gestalt I
(screenprint, 1971)

{This is listed as being related to an anniversary; I'm not sure what, specifically, it is meant to commemorate but see: 'On Max Wertheimer and Pablo Picasso: Gestalt Theory, Cubism and Camouflage' by RR Behrens, 1998.}

Marichal dibujos y aguafuertes en el Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña
(Marichal(?) drawings and etchings at the Institute for Puerto Rican Culture)
(poster, 1963)

Alfabeto Español
(woodcut, 1969)

Inscribed in pencil, lower margin: Alphabet based on text cut into stone. Somewhat similar to the one in the Museo Mare

Sin nombre convoca certamenes

(Poster for the benefit of the Puerto Rican journal, 'Sin Nombre' - 'no name / unnamed', 1976)

475 aniversario del descubrimiento de Puerto Rico [copy 2]
(Poster for the 475th anniversary since the discovery of Puerto Rico, 1968)

Qué hago yo aquí?
{What am I doing here?}
(Gouache on paper, 1972)

Lorenzo Homar receiving a PhD from the InterAmerican University in Puerto Rico

[all images © the Estate of Lorenzo Homar]

Lorenzo Homar (1913-2004) was born in Puerto Rico but moved to New York City with his family when he was fifteen. Financial pressures forced him to leave school early for a textile factory job and he obtained some tutoring for his emerging interest in art. He moonlighted as a vaudeville gymnast.

Homar found a position with Cartier Jewellers in 1936 as an apprentice designer, where his on-the-job training in drawing and engraving was augmented with night classes in typography, painting and graphic design at the Pratt Institute.

In the Second World War Homar enlisted and served in the Pacific in New Guinea and he was awarded a Purple Heart following injuries received in action in the Philippines. His draughtsman skills were put to good use in mapmaking for the Army Intelligence Unit and his military sketches were published in a number of journals in the United States.

After the war, Homar returned to Cartier, took more art classes in Brooklyn and continued his habitual tumbling and acrobatic practice on the beach at Coney Island. There are more than a few prints devoted to athletic pursuits among his portfolio.

He returned to Puerto Rico in 1950 where he co-founded the Puerto Rican Arts Centre with a group of fellow artists. A governmental Directorship of Community Arts Education followed and he also established a graphic arts workshop. Homar excelled at screenprinting in particular and he established his own studio in 1975.

"Homar is credited as the artist most responsible for promoting printmaking in Puerto Rico. He trained other important artists, such as Antonio Martorell, José Rosa and Myrna Báez, and ran workshops at Cali in Colombia and in Havana, Cuba, helping to extend his influence further afield in Latin America. While serving as director of the graphic workshop of the Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña, the most important in Puerto Rico, from 1957 to 1970, he produced more than 500 posters and several portfolios of screenprints, such as Casals Portfolio (1970), which were admired for their distinctive style and sophisticated technique. As many as 30 to 40 manual runs were used in the making of each poster, which were characterized also by an expressive use of typography and textures.

Screenprinted posters, woodcuts, engravings, political cartoons, book illustrations, logos and stage designs all feature in Homar’s prolific production. From 1964 to 1972 he produced a series of monumental woodcuts in which he combined political or poetic texts with highly evocative images and expressive rhythmic incisions. Assimilating aspects of American Realism and German Expressionism, he also continued producing paintings on social realist themes rendered in a neat, meticulous style that suggests a printmaker’s rigour and precision." [Mari Carmen Ramírez from Grove Art Online {via Zen Studio}]

• Princeton University Library has a collection of 350 posters, prints, designs and sketches by Lorenzo Homar from where all images above were obtained. [nb. I've done a little background spot cleaning here and there and tweaked the colour/brightness in some of the images posted here]
  
• Wikipedia article
  
• The quartet image below comes from a selection at Puerto Rican Posters.
• L'Atelier have a small collection of Homar prints.