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- Identity: the
building blocks of
2. Literature
and philosophy
3. Art and
architecture
4. Performing
arts
5. Cinema
and fashion
6. Media and
communications
7. Food and drink 8. Living culture:
the details of
In Pop Art, the Equipo Crónica collective of six artists
formed in Valencia in 1964 under the guidance of
Rafael Solbes and Manolo Valdés.They were the most
enthusiastic purveyors of Pop Art in Spain, obliquely
questioning the political and social set up in Franco’s
Spain via mass media imagery. Often they made
irreverent reference to the great painters of Golden
Age Spain, Velázquez in particular.The group
disbanded in 1981 with the death of Solbes. Eduardo
Arroyo was another who followed the Pop Art path,
initially parodying Franco from self-imposed exile with
cartoon-like figures before returning to Spain with
deeply coloured figurative prints of opera singers, rich
folk and fellow artists. In more recent years Eduardo
Úrculo has taken up the airbrush, painting strong
colours into mild eroticism, Americana and recurring
images of a mysterious man in a trilby and mac.
The patient real
Madrid star
Neo-Realist Antonio
López Garcia spends
considerable time on
his paintings of women,
Madrid and domestic
scenes. Some, still
unfinished, have
apparently been on the
go for over 20 years.
