IN VALLADOLID — CHANGE OF LIGHTS

Felipe Hernández Cava, curator of the exhibition, suggests a tour through the Spanish Illustration in the 70’s as a return to Modern Art in an exhibition that was created in Museo ABC and could be visited in 2015 but that has travelled to Valladolid to be displayed in Patio Herreriano, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Español.

Change Of Lights reclaims the work of a generation of illustrators that the critic erroneously described in occasions as “remarkable authors of books for children”, when in fact their works implied, in that moment, the arise of a new language, aesthetic and speech strongly influenced by Pop Art, the principal art scene of the decade.

The show displays the works of eleven artists: José Ramón Sánchez, Fina Rifá, Pilarín Bayés, Asun Balzola, Manuel Boix, Miguel Calatayud, Luis de Horna, Miguel Ángel Pacheco, Karin Schubert, Carme Solé Vendrell and Ulises Wensell. They did not gather as a united artist circle, but everyone of them, in their own personal style, were able to stir up the scene of the Spanish illustration into new shapes during the last years of the Francoism and the first years of the transition to democracy. They were also able to show their social and political commitments during this turbulent period raising special aware to the new educational models. Each one of them had a great preparation and technical skills that allowed them, in many occasions, to beat the international benchmarks and reclaim their professional role from the humbleness of feeling artisans of pencil and watercolor.