José Telmo Lodeiro

JOSE TELMO LODEIRO (Vigo, 1931-1996).
"Metaphysical character in blue", 1986.
Oil on canvas.
Signed in the lower magen. Signed and dated on the back.
Measurements: 73 x 60 cm; 88 x 76 cm (frame).

The painting that occupies us explores the portrait genre, as usual in Lodeiro, from a perception interiorized by the chromatic ecstasy. Considered one of the great Galician painters of the century. Lodeiro was awarded the Galician Critics' Prize in 1993 for the commitment of his artistic work to the people and the working class. Despite his traveling spirit, at all times he maintained a very direct contact with the living culture of Galicia and with the workers' and nationalist movements. Lodeiro was one of the pioneers of the avant-garde in Galicia, and his creative individuality is catalogued as one of the richest contributions to the history of Galician culture.He was born in 1930 in one of the most characteristic streets of Vigo, the Falperra. He liked to boast of being from Vigo and of being a Celtista, and he always kept in touch with the nationalist and workers' movements. In fact, he considered himself a painting worker. After his death, the Centro de Arte Contemporánea de Galicia (CGAC) dedicated a retrospective to him in 2007. And the Exponav Foundation inaugurated the first exhibition dedicated entirely to Lodeiro in Ferrol. The painter Antón Patiño also defined him as "a slave of light, an obsessed artist, nonconformist, revolutionary and indispensable".