Art is the Solution

Olga Source: El Museo del Barrio Among Puerto Rican portrait artists, few are better known than Francisco Rodón. Rodón was a major portraitist during the twentieth century. While many contemporary artists chose to focus on more rural, countryside scenes, Rodón’s art often portrayed members of high society, capturing the likenesses of Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges, Cuban dancer Alicia Alonso and Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa, and Puerto Rico’s first democratically elected governor Luis Muñoz Marín. The painting I selected today— Olga —is a great example of his skill as a portraitist. The piece depicts Puerto Rican artist Olga Albizu, who was famed for her pioneering abstract paintings. (I should clarify that I think the painting depicts Albizu. I attempted to research who the painting portrays, and I couldn’t find any details. However, I think it’s Albizu because it looks like her, and the two artists were contemporaries. In any case, if it doesn’t portray Albizu, that ...