In 1966, Condé returned to the United States and soon afterwards accepted a teaching position in drawing and mixed media in the graduate program at the University of Iowa School of Art. In Iowa City he met and befriended an Argentinian-born American artist and printmaker Mauricio Lasansky and the influential Chilean author José Donoso. Condé became a McDowell Fellow in 1966 and concentrated full-time on his work in visual arts. In 1968, his solo exhibition opened to critical acclaim at the prestigious Galería de Arte Mexicano in Mexico City. Later that year, William Liebrerman, curator of MoMA, acquired two of his drawings for the permanent collection of the New York Museum of Modern Art.