Artist

Pío Casimiro Bacener

born San Juan, Puerto Rico 1840-died San Juan, Puerto Rico 1900
Media - 1996.91.12 - SAAM-1996.91.12_1 - 12731
Pío Casimiro Bacener, Autorretrato, 1894, oil on wood, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Teodoro Vidal Collection, 1996.91.12
Also known as
  • Pio Casimiro Bacener
Born
San Juan, Puerto Rico
Died
San Juan, Puerto Rico
Nationalities
  • American
Biography

Pío Casimiro Bacener was born in San Juan, where his mother, a slave, had been given the surname of her owners, the José Maria Bacener family. By the time he married in 1868, Bacener either had been freed by his owners or had purchased his freedom. He enrolled in the Public School of Drawing, a free art school founded by the famous Puerto Rican artist Francisco Oller y Cestero (1833-1917), who had studied painting among the impressionists in Paris before returning to his native country.