Picture in Focus: Barranquitas National Crafts Fair Poster by Lyzette Rosado

January 17, 2021

Picture in Focus: Barranquitas National Crafts Fair Poster by Lyzette Rosado

We return this week to Puerto Rico for a second artwork on the epiphanic theme of the Adoration of the Magi, different in focus from last week's poster adverting seasonal events. One major goal of the state-sponsored information programs, which enlisted artists on the Caribbean island to do cultural promotion work, was instilling pride in traditional Puerto Rican arts and crafts like the making of hand-carved holy figurines, known as santos (saints).  Statuettes of the Three Wise Men appear, singly and in trio, alongside a wood carving of the Virgin of Monserrat in a serigraph poster from Graphic Artist Lyzette Rosado, commemorating the 30th anniversary of the the National Crafts Fair of Barranquitas, a town in the mountainous center of Puerto Rico, which hosts the oldest folk art festival on the island, dating back to 1959. The event is held every July in the town square in front of St. Anthony of Padua Church, depicted in a visual vignette at the top of the serigraph. The folk fair poster joins others on similar themes in the gallery of the Puerto Rican Serigraphs page in the Schools of Sacred Art Section. (John Kohan)