Rafael Rivera Garcia (1930-2014) American/Puerto Rican, Oil on Board, 1967 Abstract Painting with Dove. Signed and dated lower left and on the reverse. He completed his primary and secondary education at the High School of Music & Art in New York City. He then moved to Puerto Rico and studied at the San Germán Polytechnic Institute, where he earned his bachelor's degree in 1952. A year later, he obtained a Master of Arts degree from Columbia University in New York. He subsequently returned to Puerto Rico and organized sixteen art workshops in collaboration with the Department of Public Instruction. In 1954, he worked as an Art Supervisor in the Arecibo School District. In 1956, he worked for the Puerto Rico Industrial Development Company, where he served as Co-Director of Special Industries. He received a scholarship from this government agency to study Design Engineering (1956) and General Design (1957) at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, Massachusetts. In 1958, the University of Puerto Rico awarded him a scholarship to specialize in Industrial Design at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York. Upon returning to Puerto Rico, he served as Assistant Director of the Exhibition Hall at the University of Puerto Rico Museum and also held a professorship in the Fine Arts Department of that university. Later, he was appointed Director of the Industrial Design Laboratory in the Fine Arts Department and Assistant Professor in the same department at the University of Puerto Rico. In 1965, he studied at the University of Florida in Miami, and in the 1990s, he was a Visiting Professor at Hunter College in New York City. In the 1960s, he was part of the Borinquen 12 collective, along with other renowned Puerto Rican artists, and in the 1970s, he founded an art gallery in Río Piedras, Puerto Rico. Rivera García is known for the mural program he initiated in the 1970s, which resulted in the creation of more than 570 monumental murals in Puerto Rico and the United States. His work from those years was figurative, based on imagery from the pre-Columbian cultures of Puerto Rico. His favorite themes are stories and legends related to Puerto Rican history.

Overall Size: 24 1/2 x 24 1/2 in. 

Sight Size: 23 7/8 x 23 7/8 in. 

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