Exhibition of the artists Alfonso Costa and Isabel Pintado
20 april – 25 june, 2023
Rooms 4 and 5. First floor
Scenarios of Passion. Homage to María Casares is an exhibition in which Alfonso Costa and Isabel Pintado present their particular plastic tribute to the brilliant actress, without ignoring the reflection on the significant relationship between Painting and Theater. Pintado and Costa, prolific artists with a long and renowned career, understand this tribute as an act of love and justice in favor of this distinguished Galician woman, whose centenary of birth was celebrated not a year ago.
María Casares (A Coruña, November 21, 1922 – Alloue, France, November 22, 1996)is already a legend in the world of acting; not in vain, France – where her exceptional talent was formed and expressed – celebrated her with the most important recognitions while in Spain she was silenced by the Francoist dictatorship. Therefore, this exhibition is organized around this fascinating figure, not only a multifaceted actress but also a direct witness to tragic and decisive historical events, and after her exile, linked to the most relevant French intellectual figures of the mid-twentieth century (Cocteau, Artaud, Camus…).
“Scenarios or passion” is a pictorial approach that covers the different stages of María Casares’ life and acting career. Besides canvas and paper, the palette is also chosen as a support in various sizes and formats since, in a way, the palette is the stage of the painter, the place where colors are placed and mixed to give life to the work. This is similar to what an actor does, putting in order the emotions that shape the character and the story to be presented.
The “staging” of this exhibition in the rooms of the Eugenio Granell Foundation recalls the affectionate and admiring relationship that the great artist Eugenio Granell expressed, in his book “Memories of Compostela,” for the Quiroga Casares family, who were neighbors of the painter’s family in Calle Panaderas in A Coruña when María was a child. It was a Galician childhood that the actress confessed was the deepest and most inexhaustible territory of her being.