Lorenzo Homar Gelabert
Puerto Rican, 1913 - 2004Autoporietrato (Self-Portrait), 1975
Not on view
Serigraph on paper
Dimensions23 1/4 × 16 in. (59.1 × 40.6 cm)
Gift of Mr. Jack B. Pierson in memory of Mr. Robert M. Purcell, 1979.76
Son of Spanish immigrants from Mallorca, Lorenzo Homar Gelabert was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, 1913. Raised in a home where his father, Lorenzo Homar Zampol, was a cultural and artistic promoter and his mother, Margarita Gelabert, a piano enthusiast, he discovered his love of art at a very young age. In 1928, his family emigrates to New York City and Gelabert begins working at textile factory to earn money for his struggling family, as a result, he left school. Three years later, in 1931, he enrolled at the Art Students League of New York, where he studied under George Bridgeman. Six years later he begins an apprenticeship as a designer at Cartier jewelers and at the same time attended the Pratt Institute. During W.W.II he enlisted in the Army, seeing action in the Philippines where he was wounded. In 1946, he returns to Cartier and attends the Brooklyn School of Art.
Gelabert, together with the artists Rafael Tufiño, José Antonio Torres Martinó, and Félix Rodríguez Báez, founded the Centro de Arte Puertorriqueño. In 1957 he established the Graphic Art Workshop for Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña, and remained there for 15 years, leaving in 1975 to establish his own painting studio. In 1978, the Ponce Art Museum organizes a retrospective exhibition of his work, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art continues to purchase a his work. The Institute of Puerto Rican Culture will award him The National Medal of Honor in 2003.
