Francisco Rodón

Francisco Rodón, named Puerto Rico's most important 20th century painter at the Expo 92 World's Fair in Seville, Spain, joining the 18th century's José Campeche and the 19th century's Francisco Oller, was born on June 6, 1934 in San Sebastián, Puerto Rico. He studied in Mexico, France and Spain.

Known for his portraits of important local, regional and world figures, such as Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges, Puerto Rican patriarch Luis Muñoz Marín, Cuban dancer Alicia Alonso and Perú's Mario Vargas Llosa, Marta Traba he is also known for his landscapes and still lifes.

Francisco Rodon in 1975 received the UNESCO Prize for Painting by his second work on Borges, and Borges and the Aleph painting which is selected as one of the Twelve Century latin american masterpiece for People magazine in argentina. In 1983 the Inter American University of Puerto Rico conferred the degree of Doctor Honoris Causa in Humanities.

In 1961 he presented his first exhibition at the Institute of Culture including drawings, prints and paintings and in the years 1963, 1967, 1970, 1981 and 1983 performed exhibitions at the Museum of the Universidad de Puerto Rico. In 1968 he is appointed Resident Painter at the University of Puerto Rico in Rio Piedra , joining an elite Group of painters Julio Rosado de Valle, Rafael Tufino, Lorenzo Homar, Augusto Marin which eventually would be consider as the "Epoca de Oro" of the Puerto Rico art scenery.

The value of his works consistently exceed that of other living Puerto Ricans in auctions held between 1990 and 2009. For example, his Retrato de Medea sold for $93,000 at an auction in 1990. In November 2009, his most recent oil on canvas, Puedo Retornar al Crepúsculo y la Noche sold for U.S.$302,500 at Sotheby's New York, the highest price paid to that date for a Puerto Rican painting.