José R. Alicea was born in 1928 in Ponce, Puerto Rico, where he first studied art under Miguel Pou. He moved to San Juan and took night classes in carving and modeling with the Spanish master Compostela. Later, upon receiving a modest scholarship from the Department of Labor, Alicea began exploring printmaking under the tutelage of Lorenzo Homar, later becoming his assistant.

He has since dedicated himself primarily to the print, not because of an incapacity to express himself effectively in other plastic media, but for a pure vocational and patriotic preference for the clarity and transparency which the print as a medium offers him. That is why, by choice and also by temperament, Alicea goes straight to the rigor and cutting clarity of the print.

He has exhibited extensively in Europe, the United States, and in Puerto Rico. His posters are in the permanent collection of the Metropolitan Museum of New York. His most recent show "José Alicea: Cantaré en Silencio", his tribute to the poet Pablo Neruda, was held in early 2005 at the Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico as part of the events organized by the first Trienal Poligráfica de San Juan: América Latina y el Caribe.