FRAN CERVONI BRENES
Born in Guayama, Puerto Rico, on 1 August 1913, Fran Cervoni Brenes began his formal art education in 1934 at the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando in Madrid where he studied until the outbreak of the SpanishCivil War in 1936. In Paris and attended the Ecole de Beaux Arts where he was strongly influenced by late Impressionist teachers. With the onset of World War II he goes to Italy to continue his apprenticeship in painting.

After six years of formal training in Europe he goes to Mexico City to teach at the Escuela de Bellas Artes de San Carlos. Seven years later he returns to Puerto Rico as professor of Theater Design at the University of Puerto Rico and of drawing and painting at the School of Fine Arts of the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture. His own studio in Santurce became a training center for painters and painting teachers. He also taught at the Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña's Escuela de Artes Plásticas and in 1955 he was awarded a first prize in painting from the Ateneo Puertorriqueño.

He was featured in numerous exhibitions: in "Puerto Rican Artiststs" at the Riverside Museum in NewYork in 1957; at the First Interamerican Bienal of Painting and Graphics in 1958 in Mexico City; and at the Exhibition of Patriotic Works at Galería Pintadera in Puerto Rico in 1959. Bringing together over two hundred works, his 1992 retrospective was the largest exhibition ever held at the Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña.

On 17 January 2001, Fran Cervoni Brenes died in Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico, at the age of 87.

Above, right: La Mixta (The Meal)