Background
Martorell Cardona was born on April 18, 1939, in Santurce, Puerto Rico. He is the son of Antonio Martorell II and Luisa Cardona. He is the first of three children. He first started showing interest in arts as a small child with drawings.
Martorell Cardona was born on April 18, 1939, in Santurce, Puerto Rico. He is the son of Antonio Martorell II and Luisa Cardona. He is the first of three children. He first started showing interest in arts as a small child with drawings.
He studied diplomacy at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., and then went to study painting with Julio Martín Caro in Madrid. In the 1960s, he worked in Ponce, collaborating with Sor Isolina Ferre in the creation of community art workshops. He also worked at the workshop of Lorenzo Homar at the Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña. He currently is the Resident Artist of the University of Puerto Rico at Cayey and directs the Ramón Frade Museum at the same institution.
His return to Puerto Rico coincided with one of the most significant artistic periods in Puerto Rican arts. A group of talented artists known as the Generation of the 50s had started a new type of artistic production that not only drew on the local traditions and folklore of Puerto Rico but also made strong cultural, social, and political comments on contemporary Puerto Rican life. Artists such as Lorenzo Homar, Myrna Báez, Isabel Bernal, and Rafael Tufiño were creating art that was entirely Puerto Rican. Martorell worked under the tutelage of Lorenzo Homar at the Graphics Arts Workshop of the Institute of Puerto Rican culture.
Martorell's early work creating posters drawing on the Puerto Rican experience was important in the development of the poster as one of the leading media of artistic expression with a social commentary during the 1960s and 1970s. His seriographs of former Puerto Rican governor Luis Muñoz Marín and former San Juan mayor and "Woman of the Americas" Felisa Rincón de Gautier present a highly stylized but sarcastic depictions of these controversial political leaders. As part of the series Barajas (1968), Martorell presented Muñoz Marín as the central image of an ace in a card deck wearing the Puerto Rican pava (a hat), which was the emblem of his political party. Martorell filled Muñoz Marin's head with a series of images and symbols of the Puerto Rican jíbaros (peasants) and the many illnesses affecting them. His depiction of Felisa Rincón de Gautier was far more shocking and revealing. Doña Felá, as she was commonly known, was shown as the Queen of Aces, wearing a Carmen Miranda-like hat and surrounded by small icons of her robust figure wearing a bikini.
In 1968 Martorell established Taller Alacrán (Scorpion Workshop) to produce his work and to mentor other Puerto Rican and Caribbean artists. He worked in book illustration and textiles. According to art historians and critics, the work that emerged from Alacrán is some of Martorell's best. Among his work of that time is "Los Salmos" (1971), a graphic representation of the works of Nicaraguan poet Ernesto Cardenal. (Hermandad de Artistas Gráficos 1998). Tn 1968 he exhibited his work at Galería Colibrí and in 1972 at the Latin American Museum of Engraving, both in San Juan.
Martorell worked as an instructor of serigraphy in both Argentina and Colombia. In 1978 he went to Mexico arid taught drawing and engraving at the National School of the Arts and lived there until 1984. Of his experiences there he has said: "Mexico attracted me as a daily education. Mexicans are incapable of doing any-thing with their hands that is not beautiful. They have a marvelous sense of aesthetics". Martorell took a position as artist-in-residence at the University of Puerto Rico in Cayey after his return from Mexico, which he holds today. As part of his academic responsibilities, he helped establish and currently directs the Pío López Martínez Museum.
In addition to his work as a teacher and artist, Martorell has worked as a theater designer. He has also collaborated on several books. Among them are: ABC de Puerto Rico (ABC of Puerto Rico; 1968), El libro dibujado, el libro hablado (The Drawn Book and the Spoken Book; 1995), Brincos y saltos: el juego como disciplina teatral (Jump and Leaps: Play as a Theatrical Discipline; 1995), and Allá donde florecen los flamboyanes (Where the Flame Trees Bloom; 2000).
Martorell has exhibited work at Museo de Bellas Arte de Chile (1978), Institute of Puerto Rican Culture (1978), Mexican Museum of Modern Arts (1981), and Museo de Arte de Ponce (1992). In 1998 he held three simultaneous exhibits in Puerto Rico: "Blanca Snow in Puerto Rico," "Como-union," and "El bosque de papel; el papel del bosque." Among his many awards are the Children's Book Award (1968), III Bienal de Grabado, San Juan (1974), and Bienal del Grabado, Florence, Italy (1986).
Martorell's works are part of many important collections both in Puerto Rico and abroad. His majestic painting "Visiones de Proteo" occupies a central place in the Puerto Rican contemporary collection in the Ponce Museum of Modern Art. His work has been shown at the Museum of Modern Art and El Museo del Barrio in New York, La Casa de Las Americas in Cuba, and the Mexican Museum of Modem Art. Antonio Martorell feels equally comfortable painting, writing, and working in theater and in television. In 2001 he started En la punta de la lengua (On the Tip of the Tongue), a well received television program on Puerto Rican public television.
The most extensive publication on Martorell's work is Antonio Díaz-Royo's biography Martorell: la aventura de la creación (The Adventure of Creation). His paintings are found at the Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña, Museo de la Universidad de Puerto Rico, Museo de Arte de Ponce, Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico, Galería Nacional de San Salvador, Museo de Arte Moderno de México, Museo del Barrio, Whitney Museum and Hotel Melia in Ponce, Puerto Rico.
(The most extensive publication on Martorell's work is Ant...)
Martorell has been described as a humanist who is deeply concerned about the effects of violence in society as well as war and political repression in the world. His work on the exhibit "El bosque de papel; el papel del bosque" (A Forest of Paper, a Paper from the Forest) manifested his concerns on deforestation and the environment. His art reflects, if it does not protest, the colonial status of Puerto Rico.
Although he maintains a visible presence in Puerto Rican and Caribbean arts he has protested the traditionalism of many arts organizations in Puerto Rico and Latin America, which he believes are not open to consider new artistic forms of expression, have failed to evolve, and maintain very formal canons in the arts. He has stopped participating in many exhibits because the organizers constrain his art.
He is the father of dancer Alejandra Martorell, stepfather of Giovanni Rodríguez, who directed the cult film, Red Canyon, and the grandfather of Gael Rodríguez.
