Lorenzo Homar

Lorenzo Homar (1913-2004) was a Puerto Rican printmaker, calligrapher, and graphic designer who became the father of Puerto Rican graphic arts — creating a visual language that defined Puerto Rican poster art and establishing the silk-screen printing tradition that made Puerto Rican graphic design internationally recognized.

Born in Puerta de Tierra, San Juan, Homar moved to New York as a child and studied at the Art Students League and Pratt Institute. He worked as a jewelry designer at Cartier before returning to Puerto Rico in 1950.

In Puerto Rico, Homar became director of the Graphics Workshop at the Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña (ICP), where he trained an entire generation of Puerto Rican printmakers and established the silk-screen poster as Puerto Rico's signature art form.

Homar's contributions:
- Created hundreds of silk-screen posters that became iconic representations of Puerto Rican culture
- Developed a distinctive calligraphic style that integrated lettering with visual imagery
- Trained dozens of artists who went on to define Puerto Rican graphic arts
- Made the poster — an accessible, reproducible art form — the democratic medium of Puerto Rican visual culture
- His work was collected by major museums including MoMA, the Smithsonian, and the Library of Congress

Homar understood that in a colony, art must be accessible. The poster — cheap to produce, designed for public display — could reach audiences that galleries and museums could not. He made Puerto Rican art democratic.