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Raul Romero Altares

Raúl Romero Altares (Madrid 1955-Peguerinos 2013) the solitary artist. Analysis and study of his work

The work of Raúl Romero Altares surprises, does not leave indifference, awakens the interest to get to know the artist. Many are the questions that arise from the contemplation of his drawings and oils, hence this work has, as a goal, to provide light on his life and work. Because coming from knowledge, all artistic expression is more attractive. However, few are the references we have about him. That is the purpose of this work, to establish stages, to frame its production within the artistic movements of its time, as well as to collect testimonies that enrich its human profile. We start from the memories, documents and testimony of his wife, Victoria Martinez, who with effort and dedication seeks to value the immense production of this artist, hermetic and lonely.

The first task of the historian is to situate the artist in his context, analysing influences and sources of reference, and in this sense his marked eclecticism complicates the task of establishing stages or closed periods. The artist escapes chronologies, flies free in his expressive search, taking up aesthetic currents and issues. So for the sake of a better understanding, we will follow its vital trajectory as the thread of the story.

From the artistic panorama, emerged after the Second World War, lacking prospects and reviled vanguards, emerges a new concept of artist turned towards his inner world, as the only source of inspiration. Art emerges as an expression and reflection of the subconscious, the last refuge that the artist has left, facing a cruel, destroyed world. In this way, we speak of mostly abstract expressionist currents that coexist with other more figurative currents, saying this in an unequivocal way. Under these ambiguous premises, Romero’s work travels, swinging naturally between pure abstraction and figuration, on that journey within himself, to exorcise his ghosts until they become art.

On the other hand, the Spanish art scene of the last quarter of the 20th century, context of the work of Raúl Romero Altares (hereinafter RR), surpassed the American abstract expressionism and European informalism, it is characterized by personal languages, with multiple resonances and references of all type, that approach a certain formalistic eclecticism. A return to painting is confirmed from the beliefs of each artist and this reconquest of freedom supposes a vague vindication of expressionism, but articulated in small groups or local currents, without any imposing itself in a dogmatic way as an affirmation of art.

Thus, in this heterogeneous landscape of the beginning of the 80s, Raúl Romero Altares will begin his artistic career, his work being a true reflection of the Spanish panorama. Without forgetting, on the other hand, the influence of the best Spanish tradition of great painters like Goya and Velázquez.

Aesthetics and psychology, painting and shelter. Life, difficult childhood and strong personal tensions, lead to isolation in search of peace and silence.

We know through Jaime Sánchez Alonso (1955), painter and companion of the artist in the faculty, who during their training spoke about aesthetics and painting. He remembers Romero the fatalist, with a black humor and a vision of the defenseless human being before a world full of threats.

Those “blind children”, faculty work of 1978, which could be the artist and his sister, holding hands seeming lost and sad.

Romero places them in a space devoid of spatial references that makes them more destitute.

This work of youth already includes references of European painting fused with the Velazquez trace of that neutral background, of a dark ocher color.

An artist of wide formation it is very possible that he knew the American abstract expressionism, fruit of the postwar movements. In this way painters like Arshile Gorky (1904-1948) and his canvas “The artist and his mother” must have left their mark.

The aesthetic resonances in this faculty work are evident and intense, but the theme – the family – will eventually become a recurring theme in Romero’s production.

 

FORMATIVE STAGE (1973-1979)

Raúl Romero Altares was born in Madrid in 1955. There he spent his childhood on horseback between the paternal residence of the Latina neighborhood and the house of the maternal grandparents in Argüelles, where he ended up living permanently. He began to draw at the age of ten under the example of his father, an amateur painter. He already showed an enormous ability for this discipline, as is reflected in this small portrait of his maternal grandfather, Jose Maria Altares. Magnificent student at the Ramiro de Maeztu Institute, noted for his brilliant grades in the subject of drawing. Under a difficult childhood, marked by the premature death of his sister and economic straits, drawing became an escape valve and refuge, facing the loneliness and emotional deprivation. We will have occasion to incise this discipline as the backbone of his work.

Although it was not to the liking of his parents, Romero decided in 1974 to begin studies at the Faculty of Fine Arts of Madrid. There he would come into contact with some key teachers for his work; Francisco Echauz (1927-2011) representative of the avant-garde expressionist current of the fifties and professor of drawing, who would be the one who would exert the greatest influence on the artist and Agustín Úbeda (1925-2007) member of the School of Paris, halfway between figurative expressionism and surrealism, would be a reference whose influence we can appreciate in the production of RR.

He began to work to pay for his studies, first at Editorial Hiares in 1977. As a graphic designer and illustrator, he created images and frames as a teaching resource for teachers on the History of Spanish Art. Two years later, as a collaborator in the now defunct gallery, Treco he learnt the work of framing, as well as establishing contact with other artists and gallerists such as Marta Duran, the Algora brothers, ceramics and painters, Jose Mª Adillo, Fausto de Lima, etc. As we will see later, the echoes of this youthful activity will be evident in the treatment and finishes it provides to its pieces.

An excellent student, he finishes his studies with Honors, proof of this are the four drawings that the Faculty of BBAA currently keeps, located in the drawing room F. Echauz. These were done by Raúl Romero when he was 21 years old and reveals the early mastery of the technique and anticipates the potential of his work.

He was a student of great impact among his peers, as Jaime Sánchez Alonso points out, an artist with a strong expressionism and a long career, who has not forgotten Raúl. He still remembers the strength of his figures that seem trapped, without eyes and turned inwards, like “La Tía Lola girl”. It is undeniable that this tragic and deterministic sense is present in the work of both artists.

Both exhibited in 1979, along with the rest of the classmates in the promotion, in the now disappeared,  Bética Gallery. It was a successful exhibition of criticism and sales, of which Sanchez has good memories.

RR sold the five exhibited drawings and catches the attention of Manuel Augusto García Viñolas, a journalist with a long career, literary critic, cult and passionate about art, an explorer willing to discover new talents.

The journalist from Murcia practiced for almost twenty years as an art critic in the newspaper Pueblo. In July of 1979 in the section -The Arts and the Days, Open for holidays- he wrote the review “Raúl Romero, a generous creator” especially attractive because of the scarcity of testimonies about the artist. He tells us his impressions and describes him “calm and silent … of concentrated intimacy”.

It also includes the stylistic references of the painter, from Francis Bacon (1909-1992) to Juan Barjola (1919-2004).

It highlights the abundance of drawings, notes, colour spots, sketches and evidence, compared to “just a few canvases.” He considers himself in the process of effervescence and creativity, of great personality and with a tremendous mastery of drawing, “that has a life of its own.”

The art critic is attracted by his splendid drawings, which he acquired over the years, three of which have become part of the Mapfre Foundation, through the donation of part of the journalist’s collection in 2005.

It is interesting to note Romero’s early interest in pictorial procedures. Interest that seems to go beyond the research itself and search for new expressive forms.

It seems to be inclined by the essence of matter and its support. Even the frame, as a structure that protects and complements a painting, is sometimes made by himself, until the piece becomes an object, outside of its two-dimensional space. Such work speaks to us of perfectionism, of taste for artisanal processes. We are not usually interested in the reverse of oil paintings, which is usually the simple support that sustains the image, however in certain pieces of the artist it is a pleasure to admire its finishes.

As pictorial background appears -The family-, recurrent issue throughout his career. Portraits such as those of Tía Lola, initially approached by family order and which impacted so much his faculty colleagues, as well as those of his parents, siblings, his wife and his son occupy much of the issues in an obsessive way. Family as a nucleus of kinship and coexistence that can be a source of happiness, but also of pain and frustration. A difficult childhood is something that RR shares with other artists, who needed painting as a therapeutic power. Outside of the topic, it helps us to understand his work.

DECADE OF THE 80’s.-

When he had finished his studies he had to leave for Granada to complete the military service. There he does not abandon the artistic activity, as he worked in oil on a small wooden format in the Granada landscape and carried out several military-themed commissions for the high commands. In his workshop several sketches of figures in nineteenth-century military attire are preserved.

With his return to Madrid at the beginning of 1981, he began two decades marked by a strong eclecticism and constant experimentation. He works as a drawing teacher at the Salesian College. The search for regular and stable income is an imperative for the artist, perhaps because of constant family pressure, although we should not forget his deep insecurities at the time of starting the difficult and uncertain career as a painter. For this reason, it would not be long before the preparation of the MEC competition, for teaching bodies of artistic and design education, which he passed in 1985, being assigned to Toledo. There he would not only meet his wife Mª Victoria Martínez, with whom he would marry two years later in Madrid, but also his son Felipe Romero would be born.

The second half of the decade would involve continuous transfers as a high school teacher; Toledo, Aranjuez, again Toledo. This movement may have conditioned the choice of format, opting to work on 100 × 70 paper in his first series of abstract spots.

In his drawings we appreciate various techniques and materials; ink applied with pen, or combined with tempera, watercolor, airbrush, and graphite. This type of format and support offers easy handling and storage compared to other more sophisticated techniques such as canvas.

The central years of this decade constitute its most luminous and colorful stage, with a vivid chromatic palette, perhaps reflecting a certain optimistic expressionism before a promising family life. With thirty years his life changes; form a family and enjoy steady income as a teacher of drawing.

In 1985 he signed a contract as a set designer-collaborator in the dramatic spaces of TVE in Prado del Rey. That year he was commissioned to make a series of portraits of the protagonists of the play “Mourning suits Electra”, a production of Spanish Television that premiered the following year, on April 7, 1986. He made five portraits, two of José María Rodero as General and Judge, one of María del Puy and two more of their own imagination, all of them of 100 X 81, that are currently in RTVE. He directed the photo shoot with the actors themselves.

The sketches that are conserved in the study are of large format, canvases in oil of 195 x 114cm.

The drawing has, in the artist’s words, “beginning and end in itself”, being a means of expression in which he feels free and comfortable. It is an accessible artistic resource in going back and forth from house to house, during transfers by different institutes of Toledo and Aranjuez. It is the direct practice for an artist who needs to express himself in a plastic medium, without complications …… only mind, hand and paper

In this line he continues with the works of charcoal, sketches and studies of nature, for which he was interested in his beginnings, which maintain his firmness and ease of stroke and that for two decades will be an essential part of his artistic work. That hand that was already excellent during its first years and that is now acquiring the personality of RR.

The heterogeneous spirit characteristic of Spain in the last quarter of the twentieth century would be reflected in its experimenting process, in its series of colour spots, which collect various streams of emotional abstraction; expressionism, informalism, analytical and synthetic cubism. Works with volumes and balanced composition, as well as exquisitely combined colours. In this artistic exercise the spots are an excellent means to express his personality.

In his canvases he always used oil, because the use of synthetic materials did not fit into his classical conception of art. This artisan and perfectionist spirit leads him to elaborate his own pictorial supports; he buys the linen, bakes the rabbit tail and joins the frame, applies the base of preparation, grinds and mixes the pigments with the oil, all out of his noble idea of ​​art.

Also, as a support, he uses cardboard, fine wood tablex, the paper adhered to the canvas that provides strength to apply different techniques that entail great friction, all in reduced formats, with greater freedom of execution. His canvases in this decade show an artist in full experimentation. The issues addressed in his works are very varied and sometimes difficult to classify.

In his beginnings and only in a punctual way he approaches the landscape of small format next to his friend the painter Jaime Sanchez, in the surroundings of the Cathedral of the Almudena and later during his stay in Granada, fulfilling the military service, he interprets the Granada landscape with short and thick brushstroke.

For the series of spots, still life and the figure in a colorist key, which, however, will become darker and darker as the years go by.

We cannot forget his portraits, the girl with the mantilla, the girl with the cat, his brothers, his parents, his wife, the critic García Viñolas, characters close to those he paints from nature, through photographs or as a result of his powerful imagination.

Faces where looks are eradicated, as in a state of blindness in the midst of darkness, of a hostile environment. Creating and not showing must have been a strong dichotomy for a painter who always worked alone, without sharing his language.

 

 

DECADE OF 90´s.-

In Romero life and painting are closely related and therefore, his transfer as a teacher of drawing to the Manuela Malasaña Institute of Móstoles in 1991, is a remarkable change that would allow him to access his own workshop where to focus on experimentation. This is what the artist himself indicates in the trajectory he drew up in 2000 for the Caja Madrid exhibition in Manzanares, Ciudad Real. This semblance is the only voice of the artist, the basis of this cataloguing, together with the few testimonies of those who knew him, looking for a coherent story by Raúl Romero. Although limited to his first decades, he gives us dates and milestones of his profession, as well as small guidelines to understand his work. In 1991, he opted for the essay “new ways of interpreting figuration, using traditional pictorial procedures”, which is a declaration of intentions. Although his eclectic spirit has gone through different abstract aspects for two decades, at the end of the century he declares himself a figurative artist. At the same time, he reveals his interest in “traditional” techniques, that is, oil pigments and canvases that he prepared, without having any space in his workshop for acrylics or industrial supports.

The result of this artistic research combines various supports in his works; wood (plywood), paper on sacking or papier-mâché, canvas on a table arranged in a frame, in order to obtain a more rigid pictorial surface. In this way you can superimpose on the drawing different layers, combining tempera, inks, oils, to achieve textures and very personal graphics.

Artist of strong imagination and pictorial capacity in 1993 initiates a series of imaginary portraits of authors and literary characters, who move between surrealism and expressionism. The portrait and the self-portrait as the center of his figurative production, as an archetype of the artist himself, with the figure or the face in the center of the scene, surrounded by literary fragments. The introduction of texts in his works tells us about his love for poetry and literature, with Kafka as the author of the header. Also, of thoughts of his “monologues” as his widow reminds us. Because his work is born of reflection, of poetry and is sustained in a very personal iconography, which now acquires character with its own stylistic resources based on the fragmentation of the compositional space, the search for textures of strong vibration, together with graphics, lines and points, multiplied to infinity.

It is worth going back to the link between the painter and the critic Manuel G. Viñolas, who after almost twenty years, reviews his first solo exhibition at the Jacomart Gallery. Of this friendship, more than a dozen portraits of a similar format, framing and colour palette, in oil / canvas / table on a frame or tempera on paper, give good account. Of this series of faces started in 1993 and that Romero calls – imaginary portraits – are also part of Victoria’s portraits, his wife.

In the middle years of this decade and as an escape valve to his tensions, the artist returns to work daily the drawing of the natural in the Circle of Fine Arts. There is abundant material in charcoal, pencil, sanguine on paper

On the other hand, at the most personal level, he begins to suffer severe depression processes, triggered by work tensions that obscure his character and cause him long work absences. He was a committed teacher, meticulously prepared classes, typed tests and yet lived with disappointment the lack of interest of students.

In the field of stains on paper, he continues his work betting on a smaller and darker palette, in tune with the unresolved internal tensions that begin to condition work, life and family. In addition, and as an experimental aspect in this matter, we find almost fifteen  pieces with a different technical treatment. These are oils on panel, inspired by action painting or painting in action, a technique that tries to express sensations through colour and matter. It is an abstract gestural current that emerged in the US in the twentieth century and whose greatest exponent was Jackson Pollock (1919-1956). The works of Romero present an abrupt and pasted painting, of great pictorial agglomerations that cover the whole surface of the support and that sometimes are mixed with objects (paint tubes, spoons or plugs). The chronological arc of these paintings is very small, which leads us to think that it addresses this current only during the central years of the decade.

We cannot forget the exhibition aspect of every plastic artist that, in the case of Raúl Romero, we know was lived with tension and rejection. At the end of this decade he would present his work individually on two occasions; at the Jacomart Gallery in Madrid in 1996 and at Caja Madrid in Manzanares, Ciudad Real, in May 2000.

In the first one, the absence of its cubist and colourful theme is striking, perhaps because it does not take it into consideration. Anthropomorphic figures, stains to the purest expressionism, nudes to the charcoal and that personal and sinister figuration of strong impact constitute the artistic body of the exhibition.

After fifteen years of artistic production, this delay in exhibiting brings many questions. Especially taking into account two circumstances that a priori, could have been favorable. I refer to his work in the Treco gallery, with all the contacts that this activity could entail, as well as the success he experienced in that collective show in the Bética Gallery, upon finishing his university education.

It is natural to wonder the reasons why he did not show in all those years. The only testimony we have is provided by his wife, Victoria Martinez. She and her son Felipe Romero are the heirs and managers of the RR collection. In this sense his testimony is clear, the artist painted for himself and he was afraid to show his works. So that only the insistence of his family managed to encourage him to exhibit on this occasion, as well as four years later, in Manzanares (Ciudad Real).

In the year 2000 in the saloon of Caja Madrid, again forgotten certain experiments inspired by the artistic aspects of the early twentieth century, in addition to its usual themes (drawings, stains and figuration) incorporates works initiated a year earlier and named by the own artist -drawings of anthropomorphic figures-. They are pieces of small format (30x21cm) that would be a facet of drawing, as the essence of their expressive medium, in which they pour their imagination. Small figures floating on a neutral background, without references, isolated, solitary although they are close to each other, without interacting. They are characters with the deformities of imperfect and tormented beings. That deterministic sense of life is present in his pictorial works; stains, collage, portraits and are the expressiveness of a fatalistic vision of life. Obsessive topics; death, pain, abandonment and solitude works of dark colour palette and pastel brushstroke.

Perhaps the most outstanding influence in the Madrid artist’s work is found in the avant-garde expressionism of the 50s, with a clear reminiscence of the great Irish artist Francis Bacon (1909-1992), whom we remember defining his art as “autobiographical”. that in the same way is assignable to the work of Romero.

We also fully subscribe to the words of García Viñolas, since RR’s work is born of the profound silences of a painter who retired in his youth to the depths of himself and who was a scrupulous speleologist of his work. Thus, in this sense we find works with a figuration that have become darker, acquiring in these years personality, deformation and lengthening. Because depression advances without truce, making it difficult for his educational and artistic work.

STAGE OF MATURITY 2000-2013 rayismo and puntillismo.

In the workplace this decade begins with serious difficulties to assume his work as a teacher of drawing, design and plastic. The physical and psychological problems lead to the incapacity for work granted in 2006, from which he would give himself completely to his creative work.

In 2004, seeking peace and contact with nature, the couple moved to Peguerinos, province of Ávila. There Romero, surrounded by pine trees and pure air, would synthesize his unmistakable style. His workshop is still in the attic, with all the materials, paintings, drawings and oil paintings, the fruit of a lifetime’s work. There he would spend long hours of work and reading. His peculiar idiosyncrasy did not allow him to show his work, he only painted for himself, without public or critics. Now nothing would leave his studio, except a furtive pen with gouache titled “Huertas” of 30x20cm, which was exhibited in the collective Rarum, Cultural Center Ibercaja de Teruel, held in 2004.

In homage to the earth as a motive of the exhibition, he composes a landscape of pure rayism, which covers the entire compositional space. By placing the line of the horizon so low, the sky reaches full prominence, vibrant and disturbing, like a network of snakes of dark omen.

Bordered already the subjects of previous stages and refined its style, he chooses energetic form by the figuration like synthesis or fusion of its subjects; portraits of his family, of himself, by García Viñolas. All that remains -the figure- occupying all the compositional space, without spatial references, or objects that distract us from the central issue. As an alter ego of the artist himself, the form is wrapped in a tight, meticulous and continuous graphic design.

Long and tedious is the previous work of perforation of templates, with which it achieves the chromatic-pointillist effect. The family keeps a photograph where it is seen piercing, with enormous precision, thousands of holes in the plastic sheets. Occupation as therapy. Painting is his escape valve and now his most genuine production will emerge. Pictorial spaces in a kind of horror vacuum, fear of emptiness. Paper supports of small dimensions, glued to papier mâché, where his imaginationruns wild through multiple strokes involving contorted figures. Rayism and pointillism as a kind of curtain, mist, isolation, which only seems to be released in those curious circles that some works present, like small keyholes that allow us to see the texture, the skin of the painting, its essence.

Art and poetry were always fused in his work, with special relevance in this stage, where he introduces poetic texts on the back of some pieces. Like this one that we showed on October 30, 2005, a version of its most emblematic pose. It is a work on paper attached to a larger support made of papier-mache as a frame or presentation. On the back there is a typewritten text adhered, which with the intent of a detailed recorder, dates it completely. His signature stamped on three occasions, perhaps as self-affirmation. Work devoid of title, however “woman” appears handwritten in the poem.

We will see in these years a peculiar adaptation of previous works in a kind of revisionism. We want to say with that it retakes issues and sketches, which are recreated under a perfectly defined style. The reason that leads me to this consideration is based on two clear parameters; thematic and dating of his works. I have already mentioned the constancy with which the artist left testimony of the exact moment of his creation.

On the back of this oil on a table in a frame of small dimensions, it can be read in block letters, Madrid / Raúl Romero Altares 1975? -2006. It is striking that he has established such a wide temporal arch. With this simple gesture he records his artistic evolution over thirty years and thus closes the circle of his work. In addition, this picture neatly topped, shows us his taste for work well done, with wedges that tighten the support reinforced with strings, so they cannot get lost. It is not common to find artists interested in finishing the back of their works.

Let’s go back to the main reference of the artist, the Irish painter Francis Bacon, who plays a transcendental role within the School of London, in the so-called Neofiguration of the 60s. Because he not only achieves a deformation of the figure of strong visual impact, but creates the so-called “psychic space” with a different way of framing the solitary image of man, transformed into a shapeless mass of flesh and bones, where the drama of existence is agonizingly perceived. All this will be a source of inspiration in the painting of Romero, in his backgrounds of great spatial ambiguity, in his beautiful chromatic pardo-orange chords of the 80s, in his solitary and deformed figures, all under the personality, intelligence and craft of the artist from Madrid.

I wanted to address the end of the author’s interest for his own face. The self-portraits cross transversally all their production and are part of the deepest exercise that an artist can perform. They compose a kind of biography in images, for which words are not necessary.

Vast issue that combines aesthetic and psychological aspects; the ability to capture their own emotional states, theThe work of Raúl Romero Altares transit of styles and techniques … and the inescapable passage of time. All this forms a rich and complete panorama of the figure of Raúl Romero Altares.

In line with a meticulous and perfectionist personality, the artist kept all his works, proofs, sketches or finished pieces. This habit came from family, he kept everything he did as a child, which now allows us to witness his evolution over the years.

I would like to refer to one of these works in the first place, it is a small piece, just a few centimetres of pictorial mass that I had in my hands in the artist’s studio in Peguerinos. It seems little, because it is made on a metal lid of some food container. However, it is shown as a whole declaration of intentions of that young man, who already aspired to be an artist.

It is a copy of a self-portrait of Rembrandt, now a senior, a painter who was portrayed more than a hundred times throughout his life, and who is one of the great painters of the Dutch Baroque.

More than thirty pieces have been preserved since 1974, generally portraits of bust or half body, where the trunk has a semi profile, slightly turned 45 degrees to the right or left, as a resource to better capture the essential features of the physiognomy.

The first portraits show a young man of 18 years, with big eyes that scrutinize the world, with good technical mastery, tight strokes and shady and earthy tones. Those eyes that fade as the years pass and increase their difficulty to see the world. Thus, in its vital process the paradigmatic figure appears, as a fusion of the tormented being who, taking his hands to his head, observes at his feet the skull, symbol of the transience of earthly life.

His aesthetic in this matter goes hand in hand with his evolution and pictorial research, fruit of his adventurous spirit, which transits by different currents; realism, fauvism, expressionism. With a wide variety of materials; oils, temperas, drawings, charcoals, in all kinds of formats, with supports in paper, cardboard, tablex or fabric.

Composition and more classic stroke of the 70s, travel through the search for freshness in the framing and expressionist aesthetics during the 80s, with more loose and open brushstrokes. During the last decade of the century, he will develop different versions of the same formal portrait, where we find strong and varied classical and modern reminiscences (from Rembrandt to Van Gogh). These are portraits of absent-minded look, semi-profile turned to the right, broad forehead and populated beard.

Most oils and canvas on a table in a frame, all in similar formats of 65x45cm, with sometimes wide brushstrokes of pointillist air, a distorted image of shadows and haze.

Finally, we tackle his posthumous work, called by the artist himself, EL COLOSO (2010-2012), where he transfers his most personal drawings to the canvas, the result of years of self-absorbed work. Work of synthesis where the beauty of the colour conforms the prototypical figure widely reproduced of the artist, without spatial location and with the background divided into regular colour fields and superimposed on each other, with different chromatic tonalities based on points. Graphics of pictorial dimension.

Beauty participates in suffering, with a palette of intense colours, transferring to the canvas those pieces on paper, which show the afflicted man, supporting the weight of the world.

A good connoisseur of art, he frequently visited the Prado Museum, where he bought catalogues and analysed them intensively in his studio.

That’s why he knew the symbolic charge of the skull’s image, which he incorporates into his works in the last stage.

Baroque tradition represents the redemption of the soul in Christian culture, the contemplation of death as a spiritual exercise and the transience of life. As of 2011 the artist’s pictorial faculties are drastically reduced and the side effects of years of medication limit hi. He has lost his inspiration and feels that he has nothing left …

Therefore, on April 30, 2013, the day of his birthday, Raúl Romero Altares decided to end the adventure of his life.


Cristina Inglada Fernández.
Art Advisor and Historian