Invocation

Michael Ponce de Leon

By the 1980s the style of Michael Ponce de Leon’s work had developed into a kind of modern iconography, with imagery that cast off excess in favor of strong colors and dynamic shapes laid out on the sheet like emblems from an ancient city. His up-to-then four decades of immersion in the experimental printmaking world allowed him to explore unusual techniques, such as collagraphy, with professional ease and in “Invocation” we see the cumulative evidence of his artistic experience.

Layers of dimensionality - create through use of collagraphy - are embedded, fossil-like, against a cacophony of form and color. The composition suggests a planet or a celestial being floating in space, surrounded by pinpricks of starry light. The central theme, swooped shapes appearing like two hands in prayer pointing toward a radiating point of light, offers a sense of hope in the midst of universal chaos.

Michael Ponce de Leon was born to Manuel and Joan (Cobos) Ponce de Leon in Miami, Florida on 4 July 1922. He grew up in Mexico City where he studied architecture at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México and received his B.A. from the University of Mexico City. After serving in the United State Army Air Force during World Ward II, he moved to New York where he studied at the National Academy of Design, the Art Students League, and the School of the Brooklyn Museum.

He was a member of the Society of American Graphic Artists and served as treasurer of the organization in 1968 and was also a member of the Association of American University Professors. Ponce de Leon taught at Vassar College, 1953; Pratt Graphic Art Center, 1957-1971; Cooper Union, 1962-1967; Hunter College, 1959-1966; Art Students League, 1966-1986; California State College, 1969; Hayward State College, 1970; Columbia University, 1972; and New York University, 1976-1977.

Ponce de Leon received more than sixty-five medals and awards including a Tiffany Foundation grant in 1955, a Fulbright Grant in 1956, and a Guggenheim Foundation grant in 1967.

Michael Ponce de Leon died in Mexico on January 23, 2006.