Miguel Pou

Art Brokerage: Miguel Pou Becerra Puerto Rican Artist: b. 1880-1968. Miguel Pou Becerra (1880-1968) was born in Ponce, Puerto Rico. He was a painter, draftsman, and art professor. Together with José Campeche and Francisco Oller, he has been called "one of Puerto Rico's greatest masters." During his life he exhibited in 64 shows, of which 17 were solo, and won five gold medals. He painted Puerto Rican landscapes and jibaro-type paintings. Pou did not have a political statement to make. He wanted to capture the ideal of what a jibaro or jibara was. He painted the beauty that the people and the land had from both the physical and spiritual perspectives while synergistically merging the two. His work is considered impressionistic because of his use of a palette of colors and of light, although he presented reality as he saw it, without softening or exaggerating it. Nevertheless, he is a painter of the realist school because of his effort to depict Puerto Rican reality. He liked to portray what the artist called "regional types". In terms of subject matter, he aimed to reflect the soul of the Puerto Rican people and a way of life he feared was being blown by the winds of modernity. His best work was local, embracing the land, its people, and their customs. Pou's works can be found at the Museo de Arte de Ponce, Museum of Contemporary Art in San Juan, Museum of History, Anthropology and Art at the University of Puerto Rico's Río Piedras campus and at the Puerto Rico Museum of Art. Listings wanted.