The painter Fernando Baquero (Aranjuez, 1930) is exhibiting again in the Casa de Cultura in Calp 20 years after his last exhibition in these premises. And he is doing so with a retrospective that opens its doors on March 4 under the name "Fernando Baquero, 90 years of art".
Fernando Baquero was born in Aranjuez; he began painting at the age of 13, was educated in Barcelona, was a teacher and travelled to Germany in the 1960s, where he began working as a caricaturist for a prestigious newspaper. For years he was advertising manager for the Phillips company, and he was also an authorised copyist for the Prado Museum. He is a draftsman by training, although he considers himself an autodidact of art.
He retired in the 1970s and fulfilled his dream of settling in Calp, a town he had already fallen in love with. The Rock of Ifach fascinated him from the beginning and he painted it many times. Moreover, at that time he was the first painter to exhibit in Calp in the rooms ceded by the Town Hall in calle La Fuente. He gave painting lessons in Calp and is also the author of the mural in calle Vicente Gallard, which he created in the 1990s.
Baquero has participated in national painting competitions, won prizes and exhibited his work throughout Spain. Today, his work is distributed in public and private collections in Spain, Latin America, Switzerland, France, Germany, etc.
In this exhibition, visitors can learn about the artist's painterly career, from his first caricatures to the famous landscapes of Aranjuez, in which he shows an absolute mastery of colour and line. Nor will they miss his landscapes of Calp with his very personal vision of the Ifac rock, where he finds the face of a mystical Christ, or his splendid autumn days. The artist tells us that "some of the paintings in Calp's exhibition were not shown in any exhibition, they are unpublished". Moreover, the exhibition is a unique opportunity to introduce the work of this unique artist to the youngest visitors
At the age of 90 Fernando Baquero continues to paint every day. "Creativity does not stop with age, on the contrary, I think I paint better now". With this exhibition he pays a heartfelt tribute to his beloved Calp, with whom he fell in love in 1969 and in whom he still finds his inspiration today.