Search Famous Puerto Ricans
Browse by last name.
1 people
José Campeche
Puerto Rico's first great painter and one of the finest portrait and religious artists in the Americas during the colonial period. Son of a freed slave and a Canary Islander. This "Sanjuanero" became one of Puerto Rico's most eminent painters. Trained by Luis Paret, a court painter banished from Spain, Campeche produced approximately 400 paintings, thereby earning a reputation as "the most gifted of Latin American Rococo artist." Devoutly religious, he often painted for churches but was also a noted portrait painter of subjects ranging from leading politicians to the local landed gentry. Some of his most famous paintings are: the portraits of Raman de Castro and Miguel A. de Ustariz, The Virgin of Belen, The Virgin of the Rosary, Saint John the Baptist, The Sacred Family, The Bishop of San Francisco de la Cuerda, and The Vision of Saint Anthony.