Rafael Ferrer is a Puerto Rican painter, sculptor, graphic artist, performance artist, teacher, musician. His paintings – expressionistic, hard-bitten yet beautiful representations of his native Caribbean - are remarkably alive and potent critiques of both European primitivism and "identity art."
Background
Mr. Ferrer was born in Santurce, San Juan, Puerto Rico, in 1933. He was born apart from much of Puerto Rican society. His family was prosperous and could afford to have him educated on the American mainland. Mr. Ferrer spent much of his youth in the United States
Education
Since an early age Rafael Ferrer traveled between Puerto Rico and the United States, studying from 14 to 18 years of age at Staunton Military Academy and then on to Syracuse University from 1951 to 1952. In 1953 he went back to Puerto Rico enrolling at the University of Puerto Rico, where he spent one year studying art with an exile of the Spanish Civil War, Eugenio Granell, a surrealist painter and writer.
Career
Since his years at Staunton, where Mr. Ferrer learned to play drums, he has been involved in the Afro-Cuban Music world. On his return to Puerto Rico, in 1953, Rafael Ferrer continued painting and became a professional musician. In 1955 he moved to New York City, where he found work as a musician in East Harlem.
Rafael Ferrer was a professional percussionist until 1960, which became a means to support himself as he focused more on his work as an artist in his studio. Since the mid-1960s he has had exhibitions and given lectures and seminars across the US, Europe, and the Caribbean.
Rafael Ferrer first exhibited his art in Puerto Rico in 1961, but he felt his collaged paintings, environments, and Minimalist sculptures were misunderstood, prompting him to move, in 1966, to Philadelphia, where he began teaching at the Philadelphia College of Art (now University of the Arts (Philadelphia)).
All in all, Mr. Ferrer taught at several universities: University of Pennsylvania, the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine, New York’s School of Visual Arts, The San Francisco Art Institute, and the University of New Mexico at Albuquerque.
Mr. Ferrer's success began in the late 1960’s engaging first conceptual/process art. He was commissioned to create a number of large permanent sculptures during the late 1970s, including one, “Puerto Rican Sun,” which was featured on Art in America’s March 1980 issue. Mr. Ferrer was also commissioned by the Fairmount Park Art Association to make a sculpture for the city of Philadelphia.
Rafael Ferrer has had solo exhibitions at the Philadelphia Museum of Art (1970); Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (1971); Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia (1971 and 1979); and Museum of Modern Art, New York (1974). A major traveling retrospective of his work was organized by El Museo del Barrio, New York, in 2010.
Mr. Ferrer participated in in the important group exhibitions Live in Your Head: When Attitudes Become Form, Kunsthalle Bern (1969, recreated at the Fondazione Prada, Venice, 2013); and Op Losse Schroeven, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (1969).
He lives and works in Long Island, New York, and Vieques, Puerto Rico.
Views
Quotations:
"An artist noted for his simple and very straight forward style. Always working directly from life, his images are brightly colored figures. He presents a kind of sophisticated naive style."
Personality
Quotes from others about the person
Edward J. Sullivan: "He has such a diverse trajectory, he goes off in so many different directions, and he’s almost too inventive for his own good."