1. Art Communicating Art
Artistic Limited Edition Serigraph
www.artepapel.com.gt
1

2. ARTE PAPEL, LIMITED ART EDITIONS
Founded in 1983, Arte Papel, has been an enterprise that integrates in a unique project the
interests and capabilities of each and every member of the Avila Espejo´s family. This unique
project is “The communication of art”.
As experts in the art of screen-printing, it is our objective to level up the technique to the extent
of an artistic discipline to which sensitivity and creativity are not strangers. Therefore, Arte
Papel soon offers the production of original screen-printings that are mere virtuous
interpretations of their original work of art, and which gather and communicate the most subtle
effects of expression, a fact that has made artists feel captivated by the possibilities of art
dissemination that Arte Papel offers through its work.
Arte Papel has awarded trophies to quality like, “IX Mini-Print Internacional de Cadaqués” in
Barcelona, España and “The 4th International Biennale Print Exhibit 1989 ROC” in Taipei,
Taiwan.
The transcendence of these limited editions comes from the names of the artists, the artistic
quality of Arte Papel, and the Institutions that are trying to find an answer to the economic
concerns that art involves in terms of its dissemination and accessibility for a broader public.
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE GRAPHIC WORK OF ARTE PAPEL
a- The meticulous production process is based on an interpretation that is guided by
artistic criteria resulting in forms, colors and textures that the author artist accompanies
together with the master printers of Arte Papel.
b- The high quality comes visible in the neat resolution of shapes, the richness of color and
the wide variety of texture and special effects.
c- The paper we use is one hundred percent cotton, free from acids, neutral PH; and the
best tints which together offer a hundred-year warranty of quality under normal
conditions of framing and care.
d- All samples of limited and exclusive editions are enhanced by the manuscript signing
and numbering from its author artist, the Certificate of Authenticity which validates the
characteristics of the edition, and Arte Papel’s seal that attest the origin of each sample.
BENEFITS OF ARTE PAPEL’s SCREEN-PRINTED WORK
For the artist it is a mean of an essentially artistic dissemination, by which he or she might
reach a broader public.
Public gets a collectable work of art, of a limited and exclusive edition, that is numbered,
certified and signed by the artist at an affordable price.
For museums, galleries, enterprises and institutions it is an artistic mean that enables
national and international art dissemination, with a shared-benefit among their clients,
artists that are promoted, and the image of their organizations.
2

3. THE LIMITED EDITIONS
Alfredo Gálvez Suárez Guatemala †
Arcangelo Ianelli Brazil
Arnoldo Ramírez Amaya Guatemala
Arturo Monroy Guatemala
Auguste Renoir France, MASP Collection - Brazil
Bernardo Crespín El Salvador
César Barrios Guatemala
Carlos Cañas El Salvador
Carlos Mérida Guatemala †
César Menéndez El Salvador
Efraín Recinos Guatemala
Elmar René Rojas Guatemala
Edín Morales Guatemala
Erwin Guillermo Guatemala
Fernando Llort El Salvador
Florencio Aguilera Spain
Héctor Molné EUA, Miami, FL
Humberto Garavito Guatemala†
José Roberto Aguilar Brazil
José Zaragoza Brazil
Juan José Balzi Brazil
Juan José Rodríguez Guatemala
Magda Eunice Sánchez Guatemala
Manuel González Bolaños Guatemala
Marco Augusto Quiroa Guatemala
María Teresa Escalante El Salvador
Mauricio Linares El Salvador
Mauricio Mejía El Salvador
Mayra Barraza El Salvador
Moisés Barrios Guatemala
Nestor Bastarrechea Spain
Paul Gauguin France, MASP Collection - Brazil
Pedro Portillo El Salvador
Rafael Fernández Costa Rica
Ramón Avila Guatemala
Raúl Elas Reyes El Salvador
Richard Lounsbury Birmingham, Alabama, USA
Roberto Galicia El Salvador
Roberto González Goyri Guatemala
Roberto Huezo El Salvador
Rolando Pisquiy Guatemala
Salvador Choussy El Salvador
Tete Marella Dominica Republic
Tomoshige Kusuno Brazil
Grupo Marbensa Guatemala
Banco de Guatemala Guatemala
Comunica Leo Burnett Guatemala
Crédito Hipotecario Nacional Guatemala
Bancasa El Salvador
Atento, S.A. Guatemala
Arista, S.A. Guatemala
Copreca, S.A. Guatemala
3

4. Roberto Aguilar, Brazil
Serigraph, 42 colors, 40 x 40 inches.
Coventry Rag 100% Cotton Paper, 320 grs.
50 piece Limited Edition.
Tete Marella, Dominican Republic
Serigraph, 38 colors, 26 x 40 inches.
Coventry Rag 100% Cotton Paper, 250 grs.
100 piece Limited Edition.
4

5. Arcangelo Ianelli, Brazil Arcangelo Ianelli, Brazil
Serigraph, 35 colors, 26 x 40 inches. Serigraph, 37 colors, 26 x 40 inches.
Coventry Rag 100% Cotton Paper, 250 grs. Coventry Rag 100% Cotton Paper, 250 grs.
100 piece Limited Edition. 100 piece Limited Edition.
José Zaragoza, Brazil José Zaragoza, Brazil
Serigraph, 28 colors, 26 x 40 inches. Serigraph, 35 colors, 26 x 40 inches.
Coventry Rag 100% Cotton Paper, 250 grs. Coventry Rag 100% Cotton Paper, 250 grs.
100 piece Limited Edition. 100 piece Limited Edition.
5

6. Tomoshige Kusuno, Brazil
Serigraph, 35 colors, 26 x 40 inches.
Coventry Rag 100%, Cotton Paper, 250 grs.
100 piece Limited Edition.
Tomoshige Kusumo, Brazil
Serigraph, 35 colors, 26 x 40 inches.
Coventry Rag 100%, Cotton Paper, 250 grs.
100 piece Limited Edition.
6

7. Rafael Fernández, Costa Rica Florencio Aguilera, Spain
Serigraph, 45 colors, 20 x 25 inches. Serigraph, 47 colors,13 x 20 inches.
Coventry Rag 100% Cotton Paper, 250 grs. Coventry Rag 100% Cotton Paper, 250 grs.
100 piece Limited Edition. 98 piece Limited Edition.
Magda Eunice Sánchez, Guatemala Erwin Guillermo, Guatemala
Serigraph, 7 colors, 13 x 20 inches. Serigraph, 37 colors, 13 x 20 inches.
Coventry Rag 100% Cotton Paper, 250 grs. Imported Linun, 200 grs.
30 piece Limited Edition. 50 piece Limited Edition.
Alfredo Gálvez Suárez†, Guatemala Roberto González Goyri, Guatemala
Serigraph, 47 colors, 24 x 26 inches. Serigraph, 43 colors, 13 x 20 inches.
Coventry Rag 100% Cotton Paper, 250 grs. Coventry Rag 100% Cotton Paper, 250 grs.
112 piece Limited Edition. 100 piece Limited Edition.
7

8. Paul Gauguin†, MASP Collection, Brazil
Serigraph, 42 colors, 20 x 26 inches
Coventry Rag 100% Cotton Paper 250 grs.
100 piece Limited Edition.
Auguste Renoir, MASP Collection, Brazil
Serigraph, 47 colors, 20 x 26 inches.
Coventry Rag 100% Cotton Paper, 250 grs.
100 piece Limited Edition.
8

9. Humberto Garavito†, Guatemala Carlos Mérida†, Guatemala
Serigraph, 53 colors, 38 x 39 inches. Serigraph, 43 colors, 20 x 26 inches.
Coventry Rag 100% Cotton Paper, 250 grs.. Coventry Rag 100% Cotton Paper 250 grs.
112 piece Limited Edition. 100 piece Limited Edition.
Carlos Mérida†, Guatemala Moisés Barrios, Guatemala
Serigraph, 47 colors, 20 x 26 inches. Serigraph, 43 colors, 20 x 21 inches.
Coventry Rag 100% Cotton Paper, 250 grs.. Coventry Rag 100% Cotton Paper 250 grs.
100 piece Limited Edition. 100 piece Limited Edition
9

10. Arturo Monroy, Guatemala Marco Augusto Quiroa, Guatemala
Serigraph, 43 colors, 26 x 40 inches. Serigraph, 38 colors, 20 x 26 inches.
Coventry Rag 100% Cotton Paper 250 grs. Coventry Rag 100% Cotton Paper 250 grs.
55 piece Limited Edition. 100 piece Limited Edition.
Elmar René Rojas, Guatemala Ramón Avila, Guatemala
Serigraph, 48 colors, 26 x 40 inches. Serigraph, 12 colors, 23 x 35 inches.
Coventry Rag 100% Cotton Paper 250 grs. Imported Linen, 200 grs.
100 piece Limited Edition. 50 piece Limited Edition.
10

11. 11

12. 12

13. PRESS RELEASE
The Art of Communicating Art
Arte Papel, S.A.’s Limited Editions Have Universal Appeal
Ramón Avila is a painter and a Graphic artist. Originally from Spain, he emigrated to Brazil in 1957, worked as an
art director for the J.W. Thompson advertising agency for seven years, and from there, became an active
participant in the art world of Central America, Miami and Spain. He finally settled in Guatemala with his own
advertising agency.
Ramón Avila was an artist with a dream: to make fine art more accessible to people. In 1980, he established Arte
Papel, S.A., staking his future on the belief that screen-printing could offer him the liberty of discovering a way to
successfully interpret and transfer the graphic and visual effects of original paintings onto paper.
Ramón encouraged his family — wife, Marisa, his daughter, Isabel, who is a graphic designer, and his three sons,
Ricardo, Eduardo and Fernando (now deceased) — to join him in his venture.
Ramón’s first steps were to fly to Chicago for an intensive three-day screen printing seminar led by Michael Green
and his sister, Merrill, of Advance International. The Greens taught him everything they knew about inks, mesh
preparation, emulsions and equipment.
“They were very helpful to my father,” says Ricardo Avila, now general manager of Arte Papel, S.A. “The Greens
went out of their way to take him to artistic workshops that used screen printing for limited editions.”
Ramón returned to Guatemala with the equipment and supplies he needed and set about working with his hands:
making color separations, pull printing and adjusting colors. Contemporary artist Roberto González Goyri, a
Guatemalan with international recognition, was the first one to entrust Ramón with his work.
Ramón hand pull printed 30 limited edition prints, using Buckeye Ltd. 320 grams, 100% Rag Cotton, acid free and
pH neutral, with a final size of 20 x 26 inches. The work took three months and the hand color separation of 42
inks. The result was a success: one happy artist and 30 happy art patrons.
This experience led the Avilas to look for new graphic solutions that would save time without sacrificing quality.
Ricardo studied darkroom camera techniques and experimented with types of films and developers, filters,
aperture lens, exposure times — all with one premise in mind.
“My father taught us that ‘color is form,’” explains Ricardo. “I observed his way of painting, from light to dark. The
challenge is to interpret and preserve just the right texture and subtleties of the original.”
Because each artist is unique, the process of interpretation that the Avilas have developed over years does not
apply to every work.
“Once we have the forms in the film positives and insulated in the meshes, we apply the colors,” explains Ricardo.
“By way of trial and error we progressively add them by transparency until we've reached the specified results that
the original — and the artist — demands.”
Guatemalan art critic Lionel Méndez Dávila offers a compliment: "What the people of Arte Papel, S.A. do, is to
paint again the original work, but by printing media, using their knowledge and interpretative sensibility of color,
form and their screen printing technique."
Today, Arte Papel, S.A. has produced nearly 300 limited editions for artists in Guatemala, El Salvador, Costa
Rica, the Dominican Republic, Miami, Brazil and Spain. They have won three Awards of Merit in SGIA’s Golden
Image Awards Competition, and have entered competitions from Barcelona to Taipei.
13

14. “One of our biggest challenges was the limited editions of Renoir and Gauguin for the Museu de Arte de São
Paulo, Brazil,” says Ricardo of South America’s most important museum, with assets of 4,000 works.
“We flew to São Paulo to see the originals and meet with museum directors,” he adds. “With their approval, they
provided two 8 x 10-inch color transparencies for visual reference.”
They agreed with museum authorities to preserve the effect of time on both of paintings — Auguste Renoir’s “Girl
with Wheat” and Paul Gauguin’s “Poor Fisherman” — yet recover the light and freshness of the colors.
Artistic interpretation took 30 working days and 45 colors for the Renoir and 38 for the Gauguin. They made prints
with solvent-based inks and halftone base, air dried, on Coventry 100% Rag Cotton Paper, acid free and pH
neutral of 250 grams in a Lawson Genie IV semiautomatic flatbed screenprinting press. The result: one hundred
top quality limited edition prints of each original work.
“Each artist has a different way of manipulating color, light, forms and textures,” Ricardo explains. “Our job is to
interpret a work so that people see the original … When the Boston Symphony Orchestra interprets Beethoven’s
Fifth, the majority of people hear Beethoven's music — not the BSO playing it. They have cultivated the sensibility
to interpret the music so that the audience moves beyond the medium. That is how we project our work.”
Cindy Cross
Pubpartners
Sgia Tabloid August, 1998
Awards of Merit
SGIA’s Golden Image Awards Competition
1986 1987 1987
www.artepapel.com.gt
14