The Guillermo de Osma Gallery inaugurate this Thursday 9th of April, an exhibition of the artist Nicolás de Lekuona (1913-1937), who died during the Spanish Civil War, with only 24 years old . 60 works will be showed: oil paintings, drawings, collages in addition to photographs and photomontages, that the family puts on the market for first time.
Nicolás de Lekuona was born in town of Guipuzcoa, Villafranca de Ordizia, in 1913, and since he was very young, he became interested in the most modern art, being related with artists as Jorge Oteiza, with whom he shared a great relationship. In 1932 he moved to Madrid, to study foreman builder. He entered into cultural circles, meeting Ramón Gómez de la serna, Concha Espina and the critic Manuel Abril. During this period, he began to take part of collective exhibitions, winning the second prize in the New Artists from Guipuzcoa Exhibition in 1933. In 1934 he showed his photographs in an exhibition displayed in the Kursaal of San Sebastián, together with Jorge Oteiza’s sculptures and Narciso Balenciaga’s paintings, with whom he formed a Basque avant-garde artist front. In 1935 he finished his studies and began to work with the architect Florencio Mocoroa, making functional houses close to GATEPAC architecture. He died with the early age of 24 years old in the Spanish Civil War, during the Furniz’s bombing (Vizcaya). His work was forgotten and recently has been rescued in important individual and collective exhibitions, pointed out the retrospective in 1982 and 1983, in the Fine Arts Museum of Bilbao or the one in 2003-2004 in the Artium Museum of Vitoria, that arrived in the Reina Sofía Art Centre National Museum of Madrid.
The expert Adelina Moya affirms that Lekuona’s work is “as diverse as brief in its execution”.
Dates.- April 9 – May 9, 2015. Hours.- Monday - Friday: 10:00-14:00 / 16.30 – 20.30 h.
Venue.- Guillermo de Osma Gallery. Claudio Coello street, N.4, 1°left. Madrid. Spain.
