Picture in Focus: Felicidades 1979 Poster by Isabel Bernal

January 7, 2024

Picture in Focus: Felicidades 1979 Poster by Isabel Bernal

The coming of the Wise Men is celebrated throughout the Hispanic world on January 6th, El Dia des Reyes (The Day of the Kings), a time when gifts are traditionally exchanged. In this 1979 serigraph poster, Puerto Rican Graphic Artist Isabel Bernal shows a young girl, smiling in anticipation of good things to come, as she walks past a float for a community parade with huge figures of the Three Kings, who are usually depicted on horseback. Bernal belongs to "The Fifities Generation" of Puerto Rican art makers, famed for their silk screen prints publicizing events sponsored by the Community Education Division (DIVEDCO) of the Department of Education. DIVEDCO enlisted local artists from 1949 until 1986 to create public art in a progressive style, influenced by the New Deal art projects of the Roosevelt era. This colorful holiday poster can be viewed along with other images of the Three Kings on the Puerto Rican Serigraphs page of the Schools of Sacred Art section. (John Kohan)