March 20, 2007

Global Seminars & Invited Speaker Series

CONTEMPORARY ART LESSONS IN NAVARRA

Painting and painters in Pamplona (1940-1960)

Dr. Pedro Luis Lozano Úriz

The purpose of this lecture is to reflect on the artistic panorama of Pamplona and Navarra in the period between 1940 and 1960. issue This framework covers two very specific decades in which a great number of Navarrese artists of different generations worked. From the masters born at the end of the 19th century, such as Ciga or Basiano, to those born at the beginning of the 20th century such as Lozano de Sotés, Francis Bartolozzi, Crispín Martínez, Emilio Sánchez Cayuela "Gutxi".... They are also the years of training of young people born around the twenties as Muñoz Sola, Lasterra or Echauri, although most of them do it outside Navarra and finally, it is worth mentioning the presence of other artists who work these years in Navarra, especially Gustavo de Maeztu and Ramón Stolz. 

Pedro Lozano de Sotés, Poster of the First exhibition of Navarrese Artists, 1940.

This period is marked by the end of the civil war and the beginning of the Franco period. This meant that all the artists suffered a different status depending on their links to one side or the other during the war. Thus, some authors, such as Gerardo Lizarraga, even suffer exile, while others, on the contrary, adapt well due to their links with the new regime, such as Crispín Martínez.
The milestone that opens this period is the First exhibition of Navarrese Artists, sponsored by the Provincial Council of Navarre and the Pamplona City Council, in 1940. This exhibition was a starting point, where the Franco regime showed those authors who had survived the war and were aligned with the new socio-political status . On the other hand, the period ends in 1955 with the opening of the exhibition conference room of the Caja de Ahorros Municipal de Pamplona in García Castañón street and with the changes of social mentality and also of style that appear around the year 1960.

Jesús Basiano, Puente de San Pedro, 1943-1945

Despite the fact that the post-war years in Spain and Navarre have traditionally been considered as a strong artistic setback, the fact is that during these two decades many artists developed an interesting work, although largely isolated from the main international trends. Nevertheless, this was a complex period, with serious economic shortages that could hardly sustain an art market. Faced with this, artists looked for other alternatives and, without abandoning traditional oil painting, other areas of work were also promoted: graphic illustration, posters, mural paintings, scenography... In any case, this is a very concrete and specific period of contemporary art in Navarre that, precisely because of its political circumstances and its proximity in time, has been little studied and needs a much more attentive evaluation by the current historiography.

Ramón Stolz, Preparatory sketch for the decoration of the Monument to the Fallen, 1950. Museum of Navarra