|
Luis
Germán Cajiga was born in Quebradillas Puerto
Rico , a town on the North West side of the island
in 1934. Luis worked in his fathers (Don Guillo's) cigar
shop
until
the age of eighteen, dreaming about being an artist but
uncertain about what
his artistic future would look like.
Luis G. Cajiga is one of the most
known Puerto Rican artist. He has been specialized in
serigraphy, since he
started his studies in the Division of Community Education
in Old San Juan on 1952. There he met Lorenzo Homar, Rafael
Tufiño, Félix Bonilla, and José Meléndez
Contreras, who were his first teachers. He also studied
a course of perspective with the great teacher Fran Cervoni.
Cajiga’s first exhibition
was in 1956 in the Puerto Rican Atheneum. Since that,
he has exhibited in many educational
and cultural institution and commercial galleries. Many
cities and countries have seen his works. In the US, he
exhibited in New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia, Boston,
Chicago, Atlanta, and Loma Linda, California. He participated
in exhibitions of Puerto Rican art in Cuba, Dominican Republic,
Mexico, Venezuela, Costa Rica, France, Spain, Japan and
Russia.
In 1964, Cajiga, with other 9 Puerto
Rican artists visited New York for the opening of the
exhibition of the island’s
most known artists in the Riverside Museum. Heading this
tour was the director of the Institute of Puerto Rican
Culture, Doctor Ricardo Alegría and his wife, Mela.
This was an opportunity to visit museums art schools and
galleries of the great city.
Cajiga won the second price in the contest sponsored
by the Fire Department in 1957. It was a poster design
for the Fire Prevention Week. On 1965, he won the first
price in the Puerto Rican Atheneum, in the Christmas Festival.
A year later, he won the first price on the contest sponsored
by the IBEC company in the city of Caguas. In 1969 the
contest of San Juan City Hall gave him a second price for
a painting of the old city. He won also a price for his
design of a plate celebrating the 450 anniversary of the
foundation of the city of San Juan. This price was given
by the Sterling House of Santurce.
Among the distinctions Cajiga won, are a proclamation
of the Puerto Rican Senate; a proclamation of Major Washington
of Chicago, and another of the majors of Perth Amboy and
Elizabeth in New Jersey; the government of Boston, The
Director of Human Resources of Washington DC, the Puerto
Rican Free Enterprise Association, and the Superior Council
of Art.
A design of Cajiga was chosen for
the Hispanic Heritage Month of the year 1997. For the
opening of that month;
Cajiga visited The Post Office Center in the nation’s
capital.
One great exposition was held in the Museum in Ponce,
the greatest and more important museum in the island. His
exhibition in the San Juan Museum of Art and History in
Old San Juan, on 1987, was a great one, for he present
200 serigraphs, created in a span of 30 years.
Now, at the age of 66, Cajiga is
working more on acrylics. He has his own gallery, Estudio
Cajiga, in Old san Juan,
in front of Pier 4, where he has his recent acrylics,,
and many of his serigraphs. Also he has reproductions and
engravings.
|