Fundación Málaga and Calcografía Nacional have launched the collection “Colección Málaga”.

Colección Málaga. Arte Gráfico Contemporáneo

“Colección Málaga Arte Gráfico Contemporáneo” is a recognition of the work carried out in graphic art by creators from Málaga and has meant an increase in the presence of artists from Málaga who use this artistic technique in the collection of Calcografía Nacional.

Fundación Málaga has sponsored each year the edition of a chalcographic engraving plate, the work of an author from Málaga or active in the province. Calcografía Nacional, on the other hand, was responsible for the request to the selected engravers of an unpublished plate and the printing in its workshops of the corresponding matrices in a signed and numbered edition of one hundred copies.

Each year, an artist was selected, chosen by consensus by a Council formed by Calcografía National and Fundación Málaga, which has produced an unpublished work with a print run of 100 prints produced in the Calcografía workshops. The plates were incorporated into the patrimony of Calcografía Nacional, the most valuable and extensive of our country.

Málaga is the first and only province to sign an agreement with Calcografía Nacional, an institution founded in 1789 that owns the most important collection of engraving matrices in Spain and one of the largest in the world, bringing together a heritage of eight thousand chalcographic matrices, among which the etching engraved copper sheets by Francisco de Goya are.

Dámaso Ruano Engraving

The artist from Málaga Dámaso Ruano opened the series of engravings from the “Colección Málaga Arte Gráfico Contemporáneo”, created under the protection of Fundación Málaga and Calcografía Nacional of the museum Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando. Each year the series will present an unpublished work by a creator from the province or a resident of the province. Ruano points out that he has titled his work “Genesis” for “what it has of possible birth of forms”, having used the triangle, “which in painting has always been left aside”.

The original plate will be kept in the collection of Calcografía Nacional. This body, with more than 10,000 pieces by Spanish artists, including Goya, along with its counterparts from the Louvre Museum and the Istituto Nazionale per la Grafica in Rome, forms the group of the only three European intaglio prints.

Cabra de Luna Engraving

José Manuel Cabra de Luna was selected to create the second engraving that forms part of the Colección Málaga Arte Gráfico Contemporáneo, entitled “El jardín de Heráclito” (Aquatint, 76 x 56 cm.) The artist has created a geometric, serene and balanced work, made up of three vertical rectangles, one horizontal and one square. This stillness is compensated by the tension or movement that palpitates in each geometric form and is born from the rods or lines that occupy them.

In this engraving, Cabra de Luna offers us a different chromatic range from that which is usual in pure and saturated colours. For this occasion, he has chosen a subtle range of earth, green, violet and grey, which give the work a watercolour appearance.

Six plates and ten colours have been used for the execution of this complex work, in which the rigor and taste for precision of Cabra de Luna and, most especially, the printing quality of Calcografía Nacional’s workshop have been appreciated.

Antonio Diazdel Engraving

The work is entitled “Blues” (76 x 56 cm) and has been elaborated using three plates: one copper and two zinc, with etching and dry point techniques. As Diazdel says: “The original idea, the beginning, was to work on a big black spot in the centre of the plate and leave the rest almost white; it would be a character (the black spot) played by the blues (the bird) and whose result was like a song by Rainer, but then there were more lines, more spots and more colour… and the final result I think is closer to a Corey Harris blues than to Rainer… but I like it”. The work is part of Diazdel’s artistic line, characterized by a direct, simple language, a daring play of colours, as well as a tension between the figure and the stage that is always resolved in a fortunate way.

In September 2008, Fundación Málaga donated the engraving by Antonio Diazdel, from the “Colección Málaga Arte Gráfico Contemporáneo”, to the Centro Contemporáneo de Arte (CAC) in Málaga.

With this action, Fundación Málaga reinforces its support and recognition for the work carried out by local artists, especially in the field of graphic art, helping the CAC Málaga to expand its collection of works by artists from Málaga or active in the province to increase the artistic heritage of the city.

Other pieces of the “Colección Fundación Málaga”

– Book printed in Antequera in 1574, printed by Elio Antonio de Lebrija.
–“Cabeza de Picasso” by the sculptor Juan Luis Vassallo.
–“Minerva” by the sculptor Juan Luis Vassallo.
– Archaeological pieces.
–Evaristo Guerra Silkscreens.
– Graphic work by Andrés Mérida.
– Oil painting by Veronica G. Romero.
–Engraving by Valentin Kovatchev.