Coffee-inspired Art is on Display at the National Museum’s New Exhibit.

Coffee and Costa Rica go back a long way, indeed, about 200 years back. Since its introduction to the county, coffee has been strongly connected to its economical, political, social and cultural growth. Offering perfect conditions, such as rich volcanic soils and high natural fertilization, optimal altitude, a unique distribution of rainfall and mild temperatures year round, it did not take long for Costa Rica to start producing the Golden Bean.

Soon, grants and benefits were offered to coffee producers. In fact, Costa Rica was the first Central American country that started to grow coffee as a commercial crop, and it soon became its main industry. In 1829, coffee became Costa Rica’s main export. Some 16 years later, an English merchant established a better and faster route to get the product from the hills of the Central Valley to Europe. The shipments left from the Pacific port of Puntarenas, and took a five months voyage; going first to Chile, they would then go around the southern tip of South America, and up the Atlantic to finally reach England.

Today, Costa Rica’s Arabic coffee beans are some of the most sought after throughout the world. Coffee growers are still working closely with research and field experiments, always looking for ways to improve coffee harvesting, processing and marketing procedures.

This year, Icafe (The Institute of Coffee) has organized some activities to celebrate two centuries of coffee, as well as 75 years since the foundation of the institute.

The initiation of the event will start with the exposition of paintings with the theme: “200 years of Costa Rican Coffee: Celebrating the natural flavor of our land”, which is exhibited in the National Museum, in San Jose.

Out of the 25 winners of the Grano de Oro contest, 16 are on show in the museum, the remaining being in restoration. This contest takes place annually since 1988, working in parallel with the International Week of Coffee (Sintercafe).

This contest welcomes the bi-dimensional pictorial techniques and the exhibition includes six acrylics, eight water colors, one is done with pastels and the other using a combination of techniques.

The promoter of Icafe, Mario Arroyo, added that this was the first time ever that the winning paintings of the Grano de Oro contest made it to a public exhibition where the world can come and appreciate them.

The work on show is all related to the Golden Bean and how it has influenced the History of Costa Rica, and how it continues to do so. Scenes of coffee picking, the process used for its industrial production, and its commercialization are all there, as well as the impact it has had over they years on the social and cultural development of the Costa Rican population.

Juan Luis Ramirez painted the oldest piece, “Recoleccion de Café”, in 1988. The most recent ones, “Canastos de Café” by Orlando Valverde, and “Copa del Café” by Michael Scott, were both finished in 2007.

Photo courtesy of La Nacion.

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Filed under: Tico on July 3rd, 2008