“Looking Together” Events
The Looking Together events provide guided opportunities to access some of San Juan’s premier collections and art spaces. The Day Inking sessions below allow the membership the opportunity to muse on the past and help shape the future of SGCI with members of the Board, while sharing a drink or two to encourage a candid and comfortable conversation. To provide an optimal experience, pre-registration is required and numbers are limited for each event. Please peruse the information about each event below, then follow the links to sign up today!
Tour of the Museum of San Juan
If you are unable to attend the Opening event on Wednesday Evening, you should sign up for a tour at the Museum of San Juan! You will see the Permanent Exhibition of San Juan ranging 500 Years.
Choose from one of twelve tour sessions, four each on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.
There is also a Special Showcase for SGCI – Huella Indeleble: Cumbre Gráfica de las Jornadas del Grabado Puertorriqueño.
The Museum of San Juan is a cultural institution housed in a historic colonial building. Visitors can explore exhibitions ranging from contemporary art and traditional crafts to historical artifacts that tell the story of San Juan’s development and its cultural legacy. For Puertograbando 2025 the museum will be hosting Huella Indeleble: Cumbre Gráfica de las Jornadas del Grabado Puertorriqueño which showcases a collection of works made by the members of PR long standing print collective Las Jornadas del Grabado.
Tour La Casa del Libro
There are two Rare Books Collection tours Thursday, and two Artist Books Collection tours Friday.
Visit https://www.lacasadellibro.org/en/ for more information of the location.
The House of Books
The Casa del Libro is a library museum that worships the written word and the book as an object of art.
We are a community-based, nonprofit, educational cultural organization with local exemption 1101.01 and federal 501 (c)(3). We offer a dynamic program of exhibitions based on the collection and the work of collaborating artists. In addition, we organize educational activities, such as book arts workshops, book readings, and forums, through which we seek to bring the humanities closer to the community. In this way, the institution contributes to the reflection and understanding of local and global heritage by all sectors: students, teachers, neighbors, travelers, seniors, groups with special needs, and the general public.
Our beginnings
La Casa del Libro (LCDL) was founded in 1955. Following the “Let’s Get to Work” plan, Teodoro Moscoso, then president of the Puerto Rico Industrial Development Company (today DDEC), and his collaborators sought to locally produce finely printed and bound books to meet the needs of mid-20th century Puerto Rico.
Recognizing the experience of Elmer Adler (Rochester, 1884 – Puerto Rico, 1962), Fomento invited him to lead the project. In addition to being a renowned bibliophile and having established the graphic arts department at Princeton University, Adler founded The Pynson Printers, the magazines “Colophon: A Book Collector’s Quarterly” and “New Colophon,” and was a founding partner of the Random House publishing house. Understanding that the book industry would take years to develop on the island, Adler proposed creating an institution dedicated to exhibiting the best books in production and design throughout the centuries, while promoting and developing the arts of the book.
Along with Teodoro Moscoso (1910-1992), the founders of La Casa del Libro were: the writer Tomás Blanco (1896-1975), Guillermo Rodríguez Benítez (1914-1989) and Mariano Villaronga (1906-1987). Lcdo. Genaro Cautiño Bruno (1907 -1974), a prominent Puerto Rican bibliophile, was invited to serve as the first president of the Administrative Council of La Casa del Libro. On December 27, 1956, following the model of the New York City Library, where Adler was from, the entity was registered as a non-profit organization. With a prominent group of Puerto Ricans supporting the project, the illustrious group managed to establish the first museum in Old San Juan in the 20th century, and the second in Puerto Rico. The Industrial Development Company’s initiative to develop the fine book and printing industry on the island culminated in Adler’s vision of creating a museum with an educational purpose. A vision that still prevails.
The location for the then-named “Graphic Museum” was chosen by Adler himself: a house near the Capilla del Cristo on Santo Cristo Street. The Industrial Development Company bought the property chosen to house the project. While the architect Frederick C. Gjessing (1918 – 1997) restored the multi-family house, in the typical Spanish colonial style of the city, to transform it into a museum, Adler took care of obtaining the first incunabula and books donated from the first office and headquarters of the project, located in the Hornos Militares building, near San Juan Bay.
Tour the Museum of History, Anthropology, and Art (MAHA)
Immerse yourself in the art history and anthropology of Puerto Rico. MAHA is the oldest museum on the island, right in the heart of UPRRP’s campus. While at the museum please be sure to see the exhibition “ XXXXXX” curated by Flavia Marichal.
There are two tour sessions Friday and two tours Saturday.
The museum’s collection is one of the most comprehensive in the Caribbean, particularly in the field of Puerto Rican and Antillean archaeology. In addition to this, the museum houses a variety of other collections, including paintings, drawings, sculptures, philately, historic documents, numismatics, and ethnographic objects. The museum also has a specialized comprehensive archive of Puerto Rican art.
Tour La Liga de Arte
La Liga has been an institution in the San Juan arts scene for over 50 years! Come see a thriving, community-centered art space with a rich tradition in printmaking and education.
Visit https://www.ligadeartesj.org/ for more information of the location.
There are two tour sessions Friday and one on Saturday.
Unique in its class, and not focused on leading to an academic degree, but in offering lifelong learning opportunities, it welcomes through different projects, workshops and courses, boys and girls from 5 years old to adults of all ages. Its workshops and studio-based methodology are designed to guide the students in the development of their artistic faculties and technical skills, as well as to cultivate their aesthetic sensibility, be they aspiring to professional practice or for personal enjoyment.
Since its founding, it has been a pillar of the island’s cultural activities, giving thousands of students the opportunity to integrate the graphic arts as part of their human, creative and professional development, through education in the visual arts, exhibitions in their gallery, and by providing support to young artists who are starting out in the field of fine arts.
Day Inking, Sessions A & B
This event is free for conference attendees, but pre-registration is required as capacity is limited. Sign up for this event here.
Session A
When: Friday April 4th, 3:30-5:00pm
Where: Caribe Hilton, Boardroom 2
Session B
When: Friday April 4th, 1:30-3:00pm
Where: Caribe Hilton, Rosales C, D, & E
A potent cocktail of: day drinking, a dash of history with SGCI being founded on a conversation with a bottle of whisky, a garnish of the conference hotel’s claims to have invented the Pina Colada.
This event will be a conversation on the future plans for SGCI, topics may include future conference ideas and locations, fundraising opportunities, general brainstorming, changing perceptions, mid-year programing, and the new digital realms….
This is an open forum for questions and ideas. What do you as the membership want to see, what opportunities would be useful? It will run in the style of an incubator session and chaired by current SGCI President Claudia Wilburn. We will have additional board members and volunteers designated as scribes to record the conversation and ideas generated during the event.
There will be a choice of drink provided: 21+ may have one: a whisky or Pina Colada, there will also be an option of a mocktail as well. (IDs will be checked).