Francisco Amighetti

Francisco 'Paco' Amighetti Ruiz was born in San José on June 1, 1907. After studying at the Academia de Bellas Artes, he rebelled against static academicism in 1934 by co-authoring the revolutionary album of woodcut prints Álbum de Grabados.

Amighetti pioneered chromatic woodcuts, printing multiple wooden blocks with masterly Japanese-influenced precision while portraying Costa Rican coffee farms, adobe houses, and philosophical meditations on love and mortality. His works hang in the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, and San José's Museo de Arte Costarricense.