JOSÉ LUIS FUENTETAJA (Madrid, 1951).
“Painter boy.” 1987.
Gouache on paper.
Signed in the lower left corner.
Measurements: 65 x 48 cm; 90 x 74 cm (frame).
José Luis Fuentetaja began working in advertising at the age of thirteen, while attending the Vallecas School of Arts and Crafts. A year later he traveled to Geneva, where he made direct contact with painting and decided to dedicate himself exclusively to it. Upon his return to Spain he entered Fine Arts, and in 1966 he visited Sitges for the first time, where he would return every year and later take up residence. In these years he began to sell his paintings at the Rastro in Madrid and later in Sitges, on the street. Also at this time he began his travels through Europe, painting views of Paris, London and Amsterdam. During these bohemian years he settled in Gran Canaria for five years. In 1969 he became friends with Sidney Nagley, who organized his first exhibition in Toronto (Canada). In Spain he made his debut in 1970 at the Ateneo de Barcelona, and shortly after the Count of Caralt commissioned him to provide illustrations for a new edition of García Lorca's “Romancero gitano”. During a stay in Madrid he obtained a scholarship to study at the Spanish Academy in Rome, although he had to give it up to do military service. A few days before joining the ranks, he inaugurated an exhibition of his hyperrealistic works in the “Quatre Gats” room in Palma de Mallorca. Since then, intense work and the fight for improvement day by day have set the tone of this painter's life. The search for styles and situations, the trips through Europe, always attentive to plastic novelties, have placed him in the pictorial line that he currently develops. For the last twenty years he has alternated his work between his two workshops, in Sitges and Goa (India); The chromatic and light explosion of India and Nepal have defined his language ever since. Throughout his career, Fuentetaja has shown his work both in Spain and in Milan, Geneva, New York, Sintra, Lisbon, Miami and Toronto.