Picture in Focus: Feliz Navidad Serigraph by Antonio Maldonado

January 7, 2018

Picture in Focus: Feliz Navidad Serigraph by Antonio Maldonado

The Christmas season draws to a close with the Feast of the Epiphany, celebrating the visit of the Magi to the Christ Child. The Three Kings play a prominant role in holiday festivities in the Hispanic world, since gifts are traditionally given on January 6th, El Dia des Reyes (The Day of the Kings). I've selected a new art piece this week from the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection by Puerto Rican Graphic Artist Antonio Maldonado, who frequently portrayed the Wise Men in prints, promoting holiday events, sponsored by the Community Education Division (DIVEDCO) of the Department of Education, which enlisted leading artists on the Caribbean island from 1949 until 1986 to create public art in a progressive style. This 1983 serigraph extending holiday greetings shows a young girl anxiously waiting by her window in a city street, where the approaching trio of gift-bearers have cast a long shadow. It joins two other Maldonado prints of the Magi in the gallery of the Puerto Rican Serigraphs page in the Schools of Sacred Art section. (John Kohan)