Martorell: La aventura de la creación (2008) is a labor of love and marvelous gem in the annals of Puerto Rican art history. Antonio T. Díaz-Royo, professor emeritus of the Department of Social Sciences at the University of Puerto Rico-Río Piedras, performs a wonderful balancing act by weaving together artist Antonio Martorell’s rich personal and creative trajectories. With an impressive attention to detail, he documents the multiple aspects of the work of the artist who, for more than four decades, has been a bastion of Puerto Rico’s art scene. As the book jacket asserts, Díaz-Royo approaches Martorell’s life and oeuvre “with deep admiration the moving complicity that arises from a life-long friendship.”
Some of the themes examined by Díaz-Royo are the notion of adventure as a driving force behind Martorell’s work, the artist’s desire to communicate, through multiple vehicles, his love for his country and his respect for freedom, the relationship between his life and his aesthetic trajectory, the influence of literature on his graphic works and the influence of art on his written work, the intervention of space through theatricality and the development of installations, and the creative force with which he responded to the fire that burnt down his home/studio in 2006. The author offers a broad sampling of Martorell’s work, including paintings, prints, illustrations, installations, performance, theatrical sets, writing, as well as his radio and television production.
It is one of the most important tributes to the work of a Puerto Rican artist ever to be put in book form. Martorell: La aventura de la creación includes a superb prologue by Yolanda Woods, director of the Center for Caribbean Studies at Casa de las Americas (Havana) and Díaz-Royo’s wide-ranging and meticulous biographical and critical essays, interspersed by excerpts from art catalogues from Martorell’s shows around the world and selections by foremost critics, writers, and/or artists such as Julio Ortega, Noé Jitrik, Marta Traba, José Antonio Torres Martino, Rubén Ríos Ávila, Mayra Montero, Ana Lydia Vega, and Rosa Luisa Márquez, among others. With over 500 images and various types of text spanning 421 pages, the book was exquisitely designed by graphic designer Estela Morales Amaral.
For ordering information, see http://www.laeditorialupr.com/latiendita/p-588-martorell-la-aventura-de-la-creacin.aspx
For an essay (in Spanish) on Martorell’s creative process in the face of tragedy, see, ArtPremium http://www.artpremium.com/content/ed20/martorell.asp
For an essay (in English) on Martorell’s presence as a Wilbur Marvin Fellow at the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard University, see http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2008/04.10/19-martorell.html
