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Rafael Ríos Rey (28 July 1911 – April 1980) was a Puerto Rican muralist. He is credited with being the first Puerto Rican muralist whose work received international recognition.

Early years

Ríos Rey was born in Ponce, Puerto Rico, on 28 July 1911 in a family of artists. His father was Octavio Ríos De Jesús (1886–1933) who was a scenographer for Russian dancer Anna Pavlova from 1918 to 1921. Ríos Rey studied art under Miguel Pou with such other disciples as Olga Albizu, Horacio Castaign, and Luis Quero Chiesa.

Career

In 1934 Rios Rey studied mural painting under the migrant Spanish mural artist Ismael D'Alzina. In 1936 Rios Rey traveled to New York City where he was exposed to the American muralist movement and the main expositors of Mexican muralism such as Rufino Tamayo, José Clemente Orozco and David Alfaro Sequeiros. He returned to Puerto Rico in 1937 where he established his painting studio. In 1950, Rios Rey traveled to Mexico where he studied metal engraving with Carlos Alvarado Lang, scenography with Antonio López Mancera, mosaic with Jorge Best Benganzo and mural painting with José Chávez Morado.

Style and characteristics

Ríos Rey works the subject of the farm worker, the landscape of the island of Puerto Rico and the many industries and infrastructure building projects that embodied the life of the Puerto Rican people in the first half of the twentieth century.

Ríos Rey is the one Puerto Rican muralist that produced the largest number of murals in Puerto Rico – over eighty. His murals can be seen today at the Banco Crédito y Ahorro Ponceño, Cervecería India, Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport, Little Rock School of Medicine, Ponce YMCA Building, and Puerto Rico Iron Works, in addition to many private residential locations.

He also designed theatrical and operatic scenes in Puerto Rico and New York City. He painted numerous murals for hotels, banks, and public buildings. In addition he did art work for books. His works embodied the life of the poor jibaro countrymen on one end and the industrialization that took place in Puerto Rico in the 1950s at the other end.

Murals

Outstanding murals by Rios Rey are:

• Tradiciones ponceñas. (1953) at Plaza del Caribe, Ponce
• La Fundición. (1953) at Empresas Ferre. (Now housing Trinity College of Puerto Rico), Barrio Playa, Ponce.
• El Hombre. (1955) at the Ponce YMCA Building, Ponce.

There are also several Ríos Rey murals in the first floor of the Banco Crédito y Ahorro Ponceño building (today, 2019, it is called Banco Santander), and at the "Mural de la Música" at the former Parque de Bombas on the southeast corner of Calle Cristina and Calle Mayor (now, 2019, Instituto de Música Juan Morel Campos).

Last years and death

Rios Rey died in San Juan, Puerto Rico on 29 April 1980.

Honors and legacy

• University professor Néstor Murray Irizarry, wrote a biography of Rios Rey in 2001 titled Rafael Ríos Rey: ensayo de ensayo. It was published on the 90th anniversary of the birth or Rafael Rios Rey (2001).

See also

• List of people from Ponce, Puerto Rico

Notes

1. In this Spanish name, the first or paternal surname is Ríos and the second or maternal family name is Rey.

References

1. ^ Masters, Merry Mac (18 June 2002). "Rafael Ríos Rey es el pionero del arte muralístico en Puerto Rico". La Jornada (in Spanish). Mexico, DF.
2. ^ "Dan honroso tributo a Rafael Ríos Rey". La Perla del Sur (in Spanish). Ponce, Puerto Rico. 27 July 2011.
3. ^ Monge, Jaime (15 July 2010). "Recinto Sur street-1913: Rafael Ríos Rey-1961". Puerto Rico Tour Guide Society (in Spanish).
4. "Pou Becerra, Miguel". Coleccion Reyes-Veray.
5. Grupo Editorial EPRL (17 January 2010). "Miguel Pou y Becerra". Puerto Rico Encyclopedia. Fundación Puertorriqueña de las Humanidades.
6. Benítez, Mariana García (2012). "Arte en Puerto Rico: Rafael Ríos Rey, muralista de Puerto Rico". Galenus: Revista para los medicos de Puerto Rico (11).
7. Curbelo, Silvia Álvarez (1998). "Nueva Soberanía". Puerto Rico -- arte e identidad (in Spanish). La Editorial, UPR. ISBN 978-0-8477-0223-7.
8. "Edificio Empresas Ferre: Rafael Rios Rey 1911–1980, A Puerto Rican Muralist (June 2012)" (PDF). National Register of Historic Places. 2013. p. 4.
9. Avilés, Ileana López (26 January 2013). "Un monumento para cada pueblo". El Nuevo Dia (in Spanish). Archived from the original on 15 February 2013.
10. Mariano Vidal Armstrong. Ponce, Notas para su Historia. Second edition. 1986. p.63.

• 1911 births
• 1980 deaths
• Puerto Rican painters
• Painters from Ponce
• 20th-century male artists