One of Puerto Rico’s most famous artists is archiving his work in his longtime home in the diaspora — New England.
You may have seen the “Monument to the Puerto Rican Family” in the Learning Corridor near Trinity College in Hartford or baseball star Roberto Clemente’s cenotaph, as his body was never found after the fatal plane crash near Isla Verde International Airport in 1972. José Buscaglia Guillermety is the sculptor behind both works and is now working with the University of Connecticut to catalog his art, as he, in his own words, is getting up there.
“I’m 88 years old,” he said in Spanish. “I live in Johnston, Rhode Island, but I am from Puerto Rico 100%.”
The lifelong artist is known best for his bronze sculptures. In his Rhode Island basement, there are dozens of maquettes, the small mock-ups sculptors create of the eventual large work. But fans of his sculptures might be surprised to hear he also has hundreds of paintings — many of which use familiar imagery, ranging from Greek mythology to international leaders.
“For me, there is no division whatsoever between the arts and science, or between literature and the visual arts,” Buscaglia Guillermety said. “In fact, I often blend the written word with imagery.”
His more modern works include English, as well, within the paintings.
In one, a person that resembles President Donald Trump pierces a Statue of Liberty figure through the heart with a dagger. She holds a “Help me please” sign, and the text along the bottom of the image reads, “Paving the way for authoritarianism.”
From San Juan to Spain
Buscaglia Guillermety was born in San Juan’s Santurce neighborhood and raised between the capital city and its suburb Guaynabo.
His mother, Josefina Guillermety, was a professional opera singer, and his father, Rafael Buscaglia, was one of the founders of the Popular Democratic Party, still one of Puerto Rico’s biggest political parties. An argument can be made, looking at their son’s creative but political work, that he has taken after them both.
Buscaglia Guillermety had always been artistically inclined, beginning with paper cut-outs as a kid.
“When I went to study in Barcelona with my mentor, [sculptor Enrique Monjo y Garriga], he asked me how I got my start,” Buscaglia Guillermety said. “I explained that I had started by folding and cutting paper. He told me, ‘I did the exact same thing at that age.’”
Buscaglia Guillermety’s father, then traveling back and forth to New York for his banking career, started bringing him modeling clay.
“I started making things,” Buscaglia Guillermety said. “People noticed I was creating objects they didn't think were possible to make.”
It was by chance that Catalan artist Ismael D’Alzina came to the family home to do some work, and soon, 9-year-old Buscaglia Guillermety was studying under him.
“I started my journey with Catalans and ended it with Catalans in Barcelona,” Buscaglia Guillermety recalled. “Fortunately, I picked up the Catalan language because I arrived in Barcelona at an age when one easily absorbs a new language.”
As a young man, Buscaglia Guillermety returned to the U.S. to study at Harvard University (class of 1960) and then spent years between Spain and Puerto Rico.
“The power of language is incredible,” he said in Spanish.
Buscaglia Guillermety said Puerto Rico’s native population, the Tainos, were unable to preserve their language or art when Spain took control of the island.
“That didn’t happen in Central America where there are still ancient structures and they conserved the language,” Buscaglia Guillermety continued. “But in the Caribbean, we lost both.”
Now, he wants to make sure the same does not happen in the Puerto Rican diaspora. He’s archiving his own work with UCONN’s Puerto Rican Studies Initiative, and he’s backing a proposed national Boricua cultural center, alongside many stateside scholars and institutions — though no one is quite sure yet where would be best to build it or how to fund it.
“For me, culture is more important than politics,” he said, “because culture eventually determines politics.”
