The revealed mystery of María Paz Jiménez, the painter who was modern in a black and white donostia
It is a fascinating exhibition as fascinating was the life of its author. María Paz Jiménez (1909-1975) was of gypsy origin, she was a self-taught artist, she settled in Donostia, where she married the engineer Alfredo Bizcarrondo, lived exile in Argentina, then agitated life … Cultural Donostiarra as the only woman in a moment of men and leaves a wide and varied work, between the figurative and the abstract according to the times. A wide open retrospect in the Kutxa Kubo room now recovers his work and also claims his personality as a pioneer of many things, a modern in a black and white era (and with so much color in his paintings).
The exhibition opens the 25th anniversary program of the room located in the Kursaal, with a program dominated this year by three women artists linked to the Guipuzcoan territory and belonging to different generations: it begins with María Paz Jiménez and will continue throughout the year with María Cueto (Avilés, 1960) and Maider López (San Sebastián, 1975).
Both the curators of the exhibition, Haizea Barcenilla and Ane Lekuona, and the head of the Chamber, Ane Abalde, highlight the artistic quality of Jiménez and the groundbreaking character of his career. «María Paz Jiménez (1909-1975) marked the modern history of Basque art with her painting. Although he lived in full Franco, he knew how to maintain that painting and modern look he met before the civil war. She was a pioneer of abstraction – in 1949 he presented abstract works – and also a recognized informal painter. The exhibition travels its fertile and vast universe exploring the passions that converged in it. Although it was a key cultural agent in the Gipuzkoa of that moment, its name does not occupy the place it deserves in the shared imaginary of Basque art. He was a person who resisted Franco without giving up his nature: curious, gypsy, woman, intellectual and, above all, artist ».
The stage of mystery
The exhibition brings together more than a hundred paintings (133) and works on paper from its professional beginnings in the 40s to their latest works produced in the mid -1970s, as well as diverse documentation – handwritten charges, photographs, programs, programs of exhibitions, press articles – and replicas of costumes designed by her for her sister and dancer of flamenco Rosario Escudero. The works present in the exhibition are part of different collections, with special contribution from San Telmo Museoa. There is also contribution of individuals who have responded to the campaign to search for paintings launched in May 2024 by Kutxa Fundazioa.
Born in Valladolid and based in Donostia until in 1937 she was exiled in Argentina, it was in that country where she began to paint and celebrated her first exhibition. He returned to San Sebastián in 1945. «Person of extensive culture, reader of poetry and philosophy, a gypsy who felt flamenco, cultivated a very personal figuration and an avant -garde abstraction that earned him the recognition of the artistic context. However, it was out of the Basque Art, starring men, ”say the commissioners.
The exhibition begins in the surreal stage, between 1937 and 1945, continues with the most figurative part of the 1945 to 1949, with its ‘monigotes’ or female figures of strong poetic load and symbology related to its gypsy origins, continues with the Experimentation time, from 1949 to 1955, marked by a trip to Paris, and arrives at mathectric informalism until 1961. “Abstract art begins to seduce me,” writes the painter. The “stage of mystery” and the experimentation that maintained until its premature death, in 1975, complement a varied and fertile artistic itinerary.
Gypsy family
“María Paz Jiménez came from a very feminized gypsy family,” the commissioners underline. «His sister Maria ruled a tailoring in San Sebastián and sew for upper class families, with María Paz’s sister. The family was closely linked to Flamenco and María Paz collaborated designing costumes or decorations for their assemblies, or the dance school poster that its aunt Milagros had in San Sebastián ».
The curators also highlight that «María Paz’s husband, Alfredo Bizcarrondo, born in a cultured family, adapted very well to his political family. The usual thing at that time was that women set aside art when they got married, but in this case it happened on the contrary, since María Paz developed her artistic career after twelve years of marriage, with the help and support of her husband . They formed a modern couple ». They had a child, already older, who lives in Donostia.
The exhibition remains open until May 18. On March 7, a symposium on the artist will be held in San Telmo.
(tagstotranslate) Mystery
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