Exhibition: VALLE-INCLÁN: PORTRAITS, CARICATURES AND VISIONS by the artist SIRO
October 8 / November 16
For the second year in a row, the Eugenio Granell Foundation presents a programme of activities devoted to Valle-Inclán, organised, the same as last year, in collaboration with the Valle-Inclán Museum of Pobra do Caramiñal. Furthermore, this year the Eugenio Granell Foundation will enjoy the collaboration of Santiago de Chompostelas Valle-Inclán Chair and the USCs Philosophy Faculty. The programme of activities will feature a monographic exhibition devoted to the writer, a season of films based on a selection of his work and a series of conferences dealing with different aspects of Valle-Incláns life and work.
The exhibition Valle-Inclán: portraits, caricatures and visions by Siro López Lorenzo is a monographic show of Valle-Inclán caricatures by the Galician artist Siro, which is part of a series of activities devoted to the famous writer by the Eugenio Granell Foundation. We cannot overlook, when dealing with the enormous figure of Valle-Inclán, the charm that his image generated and continues to generate among the public in general, and among cartoonists in particular.
His languid and closely studied image was drawn a thousand times as a caricature even during the authors own lifetime; the maxim so contemporary regarding union between life and work of art applies perfectly to the figure of Valle, being work and image, triggering, even today, new artistic creations in different fields.
The exhibition is made up of 38 artworks, including portraits, caricatures and visions, which the plastic artist uses to explore the figure of Valle-Inclán. Siro has made more than a hundred portraits, caricatures and visions of Don Ramón María del Valle-Inclán. In this exhibition he presents a variety of this enormous amount of work, which has not finished, since the figure of Valle, as a person and a creator, so charms the author that, in his own words, it moves him to keep on seeking him in every spot, in every line.
The caricature, along with the cartoon, arose as a result of artists desire for freedom in the modern age. According to the well-known illustrator Siro López, caricaturists do not copy reality but deform it to attain a likeness with the model, superior to that of the conventional portrait. In the composition of caricatures, in which humour is not merely comical or satirical, artworks become something that appeal to the publics intellect and feelings.
SIRO LOPEZ LORENZO
Plastic artist, writer and journalist
Born in Ferrol in 1943 From 1970 to 2006, he drew cartoons and political caricatures in different Galician publications; during the last 30 years in the newspaper La Voz de Galicia.
He has published sixteen albums featuring a variety of themes, ranging from caricatures and cartoons to illustrations and portraits. He has illustrated books by Xabier Alcalá, Carlos Durán, Gayoso Veiga, Pepe Carballude, Fernández Formoso, Helena Villar, Cristina Amenedo, Mario Couceiro, Rábade Paredes, Neira Vilas, Vicente Araguas, Chao Rego, Manolo Rivas, Barreiro Rivas and Javier de Ronda, among others.
In relation to Proxecto Galicia by Hércules de Edicións, he illustrated two volumes devoted to Anthropology.
He illustrated five volumes of the Mitología series for Ediciones de la Torre.
Public Work
Praza do humor in A Coruña (1990).
Monumento ao mariñeiro in Moaña (2002).
Murais no Porto in Ribadeo (2004).
Exhibitions
Ferrol, A Coruña, Santiago, Lugo, Ourense, Pontevedra, Vigo, Betanzos, Pontedeume, Ribadeo, Madrid, Bilbao, Barcelona, Vila Real and Lisbon.
In 2006, he showed the exhibition entitled Desde Picasso in Barcelonas Galería Sargadelos and A Coruñas Pazo Municipal.
In 2007, he took this exhibition to Lugos Pazo da Deputación Provincial, and in 2008 to the Casa de Galicia in Madrid.
In 2007, he presented the exhibition Valle Inclán: retratos, caricaturas e visions in A Pobra do Caramiñals Museo Valle-Inclán.
His pictorial work is represented in Ferrols Museo Municipal, Sadas Museo Carlos Maside, Fenes Museo do Humor, Santiago de Compostelas Fundación Araguaney and Centro Ramón Piñeiro, Padróns Casa Museo de Rosalía and Ourenses Otero Pedrayo, in the Caixa Galicia and Caixanova collections, in Santiago University, in the Galician Parliament, in the Health Ministry and Spanish Parliament, in Madrid.