Neslon Sambolin
Engraver, graphic designer, painter, draftsman and teacher. Sambolin earned his bachelor’s degree in fine arts from the University of Puerto Rico (UPR) in 1970, where he studied with Luisa Géigel, John Balossi and Carlos Marichal. In 1983 he completed a master’s degree at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. In the 1970s, together with Rafael Rivera Rosa and René Pietri, he founded the Bija Workshop, after having founded other workshops such as Quinqué. The Bija Workshop led to a great transformation of Puerto Rican graphics, which began to acquire a more conceptual quality. Sambolin’s worked at the University of Puerto Rico in Río Piedras making commemorative posters and announcing the campus activities. Sambolin was also a celebrated professor in the schools of architecture and public communication of the UPR. His posters are in important collections, including that of the Library of Congress. The theme of music, especially Afro-Antillean and jazz, is central to his graphic and pictorial work. His graphic work also stands out for the use of the letter, which he designs, and for the free stroke in the drawing and the refined composition that exalts the spaces.
