Rafael Tufiño Figueroa was a Puerto Rican painter, printmaker and cultural figure in Puerto Rico, known locally as the "Painter of the People". His work is among the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the U.S. Library of Congress, the Galería Nacional in Puerto Rico, and the Museum of Art of Puerto Rico.
Background
Rafael Tufiño Figueroa was born in Brooklyn, New York, on October 30, 1922, in a household with, strong Puerto Rican ties. References to the island taken from magazines and newspapers could be found clipped to walls at home and would later become the themes of his art. Tufiño lived and played within proximity of the Brooklyn Bridge which he immortalized in one of his paintings. He first visited Puerto Rico a: the age of five when he and his mother, Gregoria "Goyita" Figueroa, spent a year with his maternal grandmother who lived in one of San Juan's poorest neighborhoods, La Perla.
Education
In 1932 his family permanently returned to Puerto Rico, where he completed Iris elementary education at the Brumbaugh School. In junior high school he distinguished himself by his artistic ability.
Career
In 1937 he worked at the Art Sign Shop in the Puerta de Tierra neighborhood, where he was a sign maker and letter painter, and where part of his work included creating allegories, floats for carnival celebrations. Spanish painter Alejandro Sánchez Felipe who visited the sign shop was impressed with his sketches and in-vited him to art class This led to his first series of paintings and prints that included Sevillana (1939), a number of prints that depicted urban life in San Juan Desde mi estudio (From My Sto rio; 1940) and a painting named after his neighborhood, Puerta de Tierra (1940). By the time he was 20, he had his first solo exhibit at the Puerto Rican Athenaeum. During that time he also produced an ink painting. La Perla, the neighborhood where he first lived with his mother and grandmother, a theme that was repeated in other works during the 1940s and 1950s.
In 1943 Tufiño was drafted by the U.S. Army and sent to Panama. During the war years, his drawings depicted daily life in the military: Soldado 1 and Soldado II (Soldier I and II; 1944) and De vez en cuando (Once in a While). After the war, he benefited from the G. I. Bill and enrolled in the Academia de San Carlos in Mexico City, where he stayed until 1949. Tufiño painted in oil a series of Indian women Lucha, Concha and La indiecita that characterize his sense of realism, intensity, and sobriety in the characters of his portraits. During this time he also produced his first etchings and linographs.
By 1950 he had returned to Puerto Rico and to his sign shop, the Art Sign. While making signs for the Department of Instruction’s Division for the Community he was invited to illustrate a series of books that were being published by that division. From 1951 to 1963 he worked as a poster designer and book illustrator for programs targeted at the rural adult population of the island. This experience nurtured his ability to define and present Puerto Rican culture and everyday life through his art.
By the 1950s Tufiño's art was beginning to get recognized. He won awards for various works of art, and in 1954 the Library of Congress purchased his linograph Goyita y su nieto, a depiction of his mother with her grandson. His mother was a subject in a number of his paintings and was immortalized in what is considered his masterpiece Goyita (1953), described as one of the most extraordinary paintings in Puerto Rican art; the painting is now in the permanent collection of the Puerto Rican Institute of Culture. In addition, he produced his first individual portfolio, El café (1953-1954), made up of seven linographs on the theme of rural life.
After 13 years at the Division for the Community, six of them as its director, Tufiño joined the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture, where he produced a great number of posters for plays, exhibition, fairs, contests, concerts, and many of the institute's other activities. During this time he continued to exhibit on and off of the island. In 1964 he reached a milestone when the Metropolitan Museum of Art purchased the print La ceiba centenaria (1963), a depiction of the island's oldest tree. That same year, the Museum of Modem Art acquired one of his many self-portraits, Tefo (1963).
ha a competition sponsored by the Puerto Rico Chess Federation in 1969, Tufiño designed chess pieces depicting characters and aspects of the island's culture. The figure of the king is represented by one of the three Magi; the queen is represented by Puerto Rico's patron saint, the Virgin of Monscrrate; and the pawns were carvings of the Mystical Lamb that appears in the official seal of the island.
In 1970 Tufiño returned to New York City, where he resided until 1974. During this time, he was a founding member of the Taller Boricua, a visual arts organization in Spanish Harlem that offers studio space to artists and art classes to area youth. When he returned to Puerto Rico in 1974, he was greeted with a tribute in his honor the third Bienal de San Juan del Grabado Latinoamericano y del Caribean exhibition of over 150 posters, etchings, woodcuts, and Christmas cards from Latin American. That year began a 17-year period when Tufiño did not hold individual exhibitions. For two years he was unable to paint because of detcriorating eyesight. Although he continued to produce art, he had lost some of his visual skills. He now continues to produce works of art, although medical conditions and age have slowed him down somewhat.
In 1986 filmmaker Ramón Almodovar made a documentary film about his life titled Rafael Tufiño: pintor del pueblo (Rafael Tufiño: Painter of the People). He was elected Resident Artist of San Juan for the year 1990, and in 1993 his masterwork, Goyita, was exhibited in the Puerto Rican pavilion of the Expo in Seville, Spain. The National Puerto Rican Coalition of New York honored him with its Life Achievement Award in 1996 and New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani presented him with the Crystal Apple Award in 1999.
In 2001 the Museum of Puerto Rican Art held a retrospective of Tufiño's work. Heralded as perhaps the best and broadest representation of his work, it included illustrations, posters, etchings, and paintings.
Personality
Rafael Tufiño's painting included portraits, landscapes and images of Puerto Rico daily life. His work is among the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the U.S. Library of Congress, the Galería Nacional in Puerto Rico, and the Museum of Art of Puerto Rico. During the 1950s, he was part of the "Generación de los Cincuentas" (the Generation of the Fifties), a group of artists who worked to create a new artistic style and aesthetic identity for Puerto Rico.
He also spent time in New York on a Guggenheim fellowship, and returned to the city in the 1960s, when he encountered a generation of Puerto Rican artists particularly intent on exploring and celebrating their cultural heritage.
Connections
Rafael Tufiño had two daughters, Nitza Tufiño and Rima Tufiño, and three sons, Rafael Tufiño Jr., Salvatore Tufiño, and Pablo Tufiño.