Collection

Painter and printmaker. Hernández Acevedo came from a very humble family, left school after the fourth grade, and worked as a shoemaker, assistant sign maker, and cook. In 1947 he entered the Graphic Arts Workshop of Division de Educación a la Comunidad (DivEdCo) and under the encouragement of American graphic artist Irene Delano, who was then the director of the Workshop, he learned silk-screening and began to paint, for which he had a natural talent. A simple, honest man, in his paintings Hernández Acevedo favored scenes of streets and houses in Old San Juan, in which such characteristic features of the old city as light posts, power lines and kites are frequent images. He also illustrated historical events such as the inauguration of Luis Muñoz Marín in 1948. His placement of pictorial elements in the composition, his keen eye for detail, the simplicity of subjects and shapes, and the variety of light and color have made him one of the main representatives of Art Naïf in Puerto Rico.