Rico Fonseca

Rico Fonseca is a self taught South American artist. Born in Lima, Peru, Rico’s childhood was rough, born into a poor family, his father was a carpenter and his mother a needlepoint embroider (who passed away when Rico was 6 years old).

He commenced drawing at the age of 3, even drawing a family portrait of his family at the age of 5. Rico ran away from home at the age of 8 (due to his violent father beating him) and lived on the streets, finding shelter where he could and begging for food.

Rico began shining shoes and sketching portraits for tourists in Peru’s capital, Lima, before becoming a tour guide within the city (after learning how to speak English).

At the age of 17, thanks to a generous American sponsor who assisted him with the preparation of a residential visa, Rico was able to immigrate to USA to pursue his dream of becoming a world known artist. 3 months later (in 1961), after hitch-hiking 5 thousand miles, he reached Miami, USA.

Living in both New York and California, Rico worked a variety of jobs, including as a waiter, a kitchen hand and even as an extra in movies. His love of art continued to grow and flourish.

Rico sold thousands of his art designs after he was discovered by a poster company. In 1965, he created his first pen and ink collage style mural on canvas titled, ‘The Famous World’.

Rico would go on to create other great works such as, ‘Human Race’, ‘The Miracle’, ‘The Comedians’, ‘Master of Masters’, ‘The Creator’. ‘The Tree of Hope’ and many more.

For over 30 years, Rico’s art has been exhibited throughout the US at various galleries, art shows and fairs. His work has been featured extensively in magazines and newspapers (The New York Times, The Daily News, The Post, The Village Voice, Downtown, The Aquarian, The New Yorker, Playboy, etc), and even the backdrop of television commercials, news reports and talk shows.

‘The World of Cartoons‘ is another of Rico’s work, a collage style mural. Created in 1971, the full color lithograph features a large variety of pop culture and comic book characters from Walt Disney, DC, Marvel, Hanna-Barbera, Dr. Seuss Horton, Syndicated Newspaper Comic Strips and so many more. Also, Television/Movie personalities and even singers can be seen in the mural.

The matt finish lithograph measures 44″ x 26″, surrounded by a white boarder, with the title ‘The World of Cartoons’ seen at the bottom in the center. The reverse of the lithograph is blank.

The Phantom can be found in the center of the lithograph.

A second version of ‘The World of Cartoons’ collage was released in 1990, more in the style of a poster. We see a black boarder on this version presented in a gloss finish, measuring 37″ x 22″ and again we see the title of the work at the bottom in the center.

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