How to make a Color Lithograph. This is one of only two known surviving films by the legendary (and somewhat mysterious) multifaceted artist, printmaker, photographer, painter and cinematographer Emilio Amero (1901 -1976). In this film, completed about 1950-51 and shown at the Cincinnati Art Museum at their biennial color lithography exhibition shortly thereafter, we are given insights into Amero’s cinema-graphic skills and style. He also demonstrates his knowledge of, and love for, the lithographic process of which he was an acknowledged master.

As a film-maker, Amero is known for his early experimental films, particularly for 777. Unfortunately, none of these survive, and for his film script collaborations with two of the giants of 20th Century literature, Gilberto Owen for whom the Owen Prize in Literature in Mexico is named, and the Spanish poet and playwright, Federico Garcia Lorca. He collaborated with Owen in 1928 on the film-script El río sin tacto, and worked with Garcia Lorca on the script for Trip to the Moon the following year.

Besides this film and the later, Jose de Rivera, only fragments or incomplete working prints of Amero’s films survive.