Jorge Castillo

JORGE CASTILLO (Pontevedra, 1933).
"One more afternoon in the strait", 2014.
Acrylic on canvas.
Work reproduced in; VV.AA., "Jorge Castillo in Sweden". Jorge Castillo Foundation, 2015. p. 20.
Signed in the upper right corner.
Measurements: 100 x 150 cm; 104 x 154 cm (frame).
This work is part of a series of 105 paintings made by Jorge Castillo during 2013. The series is inspired by the landscape of the small Swedish town of Helsingborg, where the artist was invited by the MDA Gallery, which held an exhibition on the painter at the end of 2012. This series has a great relevance in the artist's career since it focuses all his attention on the landscape as a motif of creation, although it is true that he had previously portrayed the urban landscape of New York, a city that inspired much of his work, but never from a perspective where the natural invades the scene becoming the only protagonist. In the book Jorge Castillo in Sweden, it is described how the author "Castillo, with more than sixty years dedicated to art, seems to have decided to take the path of natural simplicity and we can see it in this use of only three or four colors to which he submits his painting craft (Yola Quiros)". Castillo introduces us to the cold, to the stillness of an austere climate in a dreamlike way that is situated on the limits of reality.
Since he was a child, Jorge Castillo has been passionate about drawing, and when he was only ten years old, he made his first copy of Rubens with colored pencils. According to Castillo, Rubens' painting taught him to understand the cubism of Braque and Picasso. He has lived in Argentina, Spain, France, Italy, Germany and the United States, and since 2008 he has lived in Ibiza. He grew up in Buenos Aires, where he spent long hours at the port, besides dedicating his time to painting and writing. During these years he began to show his paintings, even exhibiting at the Salón de Mayo. He also published poems and short stories in magazines. However, at the age of twenty-two he decided to leave his city and go to Paris. However, for economic reasons he settled in Spain, specifically in Madrid, where he spent six years, between 1957 and 1963, the first three of them living as a vagabond. However, his contact with Viola and Jorge Cela, who were impressed by his drawings, would change the course of his life. During these years he would gradually opt for the technique of engraving, which from then on would be one of his main means of expression. He then began to emerge as an artist, to sell his first works and to establish some important contacts, protected by Luis González Robles, who in 1960 took him to the São Paulo Biennial. There, his works surprised and received praiseworthy reviews, and during these years he also exhibited in Madrid and Barcelona, as well as in San Francisco, Lisbon, Pittsburgh and Tokyo. And it was in 1964, the year of his participation in the Venice Biennial, when the doors of Paris finally opened for him, thanks to the contract he signed with the art dealer André Schoeller. He settled in the French capital for almost four years, until 1967, and there he regularly visited the Louvre Museum and continued to hold increasingly successful exhibitions. In 1967 Castillo left Paris and moved to Geneva, since Schoeller had sold his contract to the Swiss Jan Krugier, then one of the most important gallery owners in Europe. However, he did not like the city, so he went to Boissano, in Italy. In this country he became immersed in classical Italian art, especially from the Trecento and Quattrocento, and in 1969 he was invited by the German government to work in Berlin, where he lived until 1975. In 1970 he exhibited at the Nationalgalerie in the German capital, the first major museum exhibition dedicated to a specific period of his career, and later in numerous Berlin galleries. When he left Berlin Castillo moved to Barcelona, by then a recognized painter in Europe and America. There he exhibited regularly at the Joan Prats gallery, and met Salvador Dalí. During these years he began to visit New York and finally settled there in 1981, remaining in the city until 1992.