López Rivas was the owner of the Venezuelan newspaper Diario El Fonógrafo (The Daily Phonograph) that was published by Imprenta Americana. He was also a professor of professional drawing, educated in France, and passionate about graphic arts.[1]
In 1888 López Rivas started to publish a monthly magazine, El Zulia ilustrado (The Illustrated Zulia), dedicated to the history and culture of the Venezuelan state of Zulia. It was on the pages of this magazine, published by Imprenta Americana, that illustrations and photographs were printed for the first time in a Venezuelan periodical publication. Most of the illustrations were drawings of national heroes and country landscapes made by López Rivas himself.[2]
Imprenta Americana had the most modern techniques of the time and it was the first workshop in Venezuela to print illustrations using a three-color system. This publishing house became a well known firm inside and outside Venezuela and it won many prizes in national and international fairs.[3] López Rivas is considered "a true revolutionary of the Venezuelan graphic arts, a precursor and a sower".[4]
