When Francisco Bores went to Paris in search of the avant-garde

A new anniversary celebration brings us the presence of another artist: Francisco Bores. On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of his death, on May 10, 1972, the Student Residence presents a suggestive exhibition that covers his entire career.

Born in Madrid in 1898, from 1916 Bores began to study painting, make copies of the classics at the Prado Museum, and thus began his career as a painter and illustrator. In 1922 he participated in the National Exhibition of Fine Arts and the following year he became involved with the ultraist movement, participating in gatherings, attending literary circles and the Student Residence.

The fact that the exhibition takes place in this space, where the most important writers and artists in Spain gathered in the second decade of the 20th century, central to the “Generation of 27”, is a journey through time that allows us to recover the figure of Bores with the best echoes and resonances.

[Lorca in his habitation, memories of the Residence]

The exhibition is divided into two large sections: “Madrid (1898-1925)” and “Paris (1925-1972)”. They met more than a hundred works by Bores –oils, drawings and engravings–, which are accompanied by five pieces by other artists who lived with him in that avant-garde environment. And also a set of documents, magazines and printed matter, and photographs.

In Madrid in the 1920s, Bores established ties of contact and friendship with some of the most important intellectual and artistic figures, such as Ramón Gómez de la Serna, Federico García Lorca, Salvador Dalí, Luis Buñuel, Gerardo Diego, Emilio Prados, José Moreno Villa or José Bergamín, some of whom we see pictured here.

He settled in Paris in 1925, where he met Picasso and Juan Gris, and became part of the plural and intense flowering of the avant-garde.

However, it seems that he became disenchanted with the scarce echo that new artistic approaches were having in Spain and, in his words, feeling “an urgent need for renewal”, he settled in Paris in 1925, where he met Picasso and Juan Gris. and was part of the plural and intense flowering of the avant-garde, although always maintaining your independence. He would reside there until the end of his life.

Both in Spain and France, in addition to painting, Bores focuses his attention on illustrationand his cover designs stand out in the early years of the western magazineas well as drawings and illustrations for books, always with great expressive power, as seen in the exhibition.

In France he expanded his relationships with important artists. His arrival in Paris coincides, as he himself writes in 1957, with what is considered “the last year of Cubism”, but he emphasizes that he had “no relationship with the last Cubists”, and that, on the contrary, the painters with Those who felt affinity were those who were closer to surrealism”.

From then on, his career was consolidated, with games of lines and drawings, in which open cubist echoes can be perceived, as well as the desire to capture life in depth, in tune with the surreal horizon.

All this is reflected in his themes: portraits, still lifes, nudes and active scenes, in which dynamism and expressive force overlap with non-mimetic figuration. There are Holes: painting from within, in depth, the aroma of life.

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