Baltasar Lobo

BALTASAR LOBO CASQUERO (Cerecinos de Campos, Zamora, 1910 - Paris, 1993).
"The grandchildren of Maruja Rolando", 1958.
Crayons on paper.
Signed, dated and located in the lower area.
Measurements: 49 x 64 cm.
In this work of naïf character both thematically and aesthetically Lobo portrays the grandchildren of the famous Venezuelan painter Maruja Rolando (1923-1970). It is a drawing influenced by lyrical abstraction and the synthesis of human forms, with her characteristic approach of soft lines, rounded volumes and a deep emotional charge, contained in the formal simplicity. In the drawing, stylized children's figures are observed, with bodies reduced to essential forms: oval heads, compact torsos and limbs delineated with soft and curvilinear strokes. The children's faces lack realistic details, but convey serenity and an innocent complicity, as if they were enveloped in an intimate and familiar atmosphere.

A sculptor and draughtsman and a prominent member of the historical avant-garde, Lobo began his training in an imagery workshop in Valladolid, where he entered at the age of twelve. In 1927 he obtained a scholarship to enter the San Fernando Academy in Madrid, although he only attended its courses for nine months. He then attended night courses at the School of Arts and Crafts, while he earned his living sculpting tombstones. In 1946 he settled in Paris, where he lived and worked for the rest of his life. There he was welcomed by Picasso, and became friends with the sculptor Henri Laurens. Lobo held numerous solo exhibitions in Spain and France, as well as in Sweden, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Germany, Japan and Venezuela. The retrospective dedicated to his work at the Museo de Arte Moderno in Madrid in 1960 was especially noteworthy. He also took part in important group exhibitions in Europe. Currently, his sculptures are part of the urban landscape of cities such as Zurich, Annecy, Paris, Luxembourg and Caracas. Throughout his career he was distinguished with important awards, such as the Official Prize of Arts and Letters of France in 1981, the National Prize of Plastic Arts of Spain in 1984, or the Andres Bello Order of the Venezuelan Government in 1989. Two years after his death, in 1995, the Museo de Bellas Artes de Caracas dedicated an exhibition to him. Recently, an open-air exhibition of Lobo's sculptures was held in the city of Valladolid, and later moved to other capitals such as Seville, Lisbon and Madrid. In Lobo's sculpture, over the years, the form is stylized to the point of approaching abstraction, without losing its eminently figurative origin. His personal evolution is characterized by the search for the purity of volumes and the reduction of forms to the most essential, both in bronze and in granite and marble. Thematically, the woman has always been the main reference for Lobo's work. His production is divided into two clearly differentiated periods; the first, more primitivist, and a second stage marked by the influence of surrealism. Currently there is a museum in Zamora dedicated to his work, which bears his name. Lobo is also represented in the Museum of Fine Arts of Asturias, the Connaught Brown Gallery in London, the Thomas Ladengalerie in Munich, the MAPFRE Foundation in Madrid, the Kunsthalle in Dusseldorf and the Lentos Kunstmuseum in Linz (Austria), among others.