San Salvador, 1924 Rosa Mena Valenzuela started her painting studies at the academy of Spanish painter Valero Lecha. In 1960, she landed a scholarship donated by the Italian government. A few years later, she traveled back to Europe for her artistic coming of age. She trekked to France, Germany, Spain, Austria and several Middle East nations. Her Remembrances Of The East was inspired by her journey to Jerusalem.From that moment on, she exhibited Travel Memories, followed by a number of expositions in her homeland and abroad.In 1973, she founded the Rosa Mena Valenzuela Drawing and Painting Academy. Two years later, a book named after her and entirely devoted to her work hit the shelves. On that same year, an extraordinary session of the Salvadoran National Assembly awarded her with the Acknowledgment Scroll. In October 1997, she was specially invited to travel to Spain for the grand opening of an itinerant sample entitled Iberian America Paints at the Casa de America Madrid.More recently, this great Salvadoran painter has been honored by major governmental organizations and the civil society in recognition to her outstanding work for the national fine arts.