VERSIÓN INGLESA ENGLISH VERSION - Fundación César Manrique

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a point of no return in many other ways. In the local environment in the Canary Islands, after the
blossoming of the avant-garde in the thirties around Gaceta de Arte initiatives and the presence of a
group of surrealist artists, the advent of the forties brought the “surrender of artistic modernity” 1 .
One example of such surrender in Manrique’s immediate circle was Pancho Lasso, a sculptor born in
Lanzarote who had been close to Alberto Sánchez in pre-war Madrid and played an active role in the
experiences of the so-called Vallecas School. In the years after the war, although Lasso conveyed his
passion for formal experimentation to the young César, he lacked the audacity to follow through on
his own avant-garde tendencies. Many artists and writers who, having taken part in what has been
called the Silver Age 2 of Spanish culture, died or were exiled as a result of the civil war or, when they
did stay in the country - such as in the case of Lasso and many others -, they changed the course of
their activity to adapt to the new situation and needs. Despite this, recent historiographic proposals
have studied this transition from one age to another in an attempt to discover not only where breaks
were made with the past, but the existence of surprising continuities 3 as well. And while the immediate
post-war period must unquestionably be construed, generally speaking, as a return to conservatism,
it should also be recalled that, in the official domain, and in particular in the world of artistic education
and national exhibitions, academic discourse at its most antiquated had never ceased to reign, for all
the numerous exceptions that may be cited, even at the height of avant-garde optimism, in the ten
years from 1925 to 1935.
The nineteen forties began harshly for young Spanish artists as a period laden with economic and
social problems, in which it was no easy task to find a place for artistic activity. The existence of dire
poverty among large swathes of the population commanded other priorities. Barring early exceptions
marked by the building of the Valley of the Fallen, the Ministry of the Air Force as a replica of the
Escorial monastery, the nearby Arch of Triumph at Moncloa, or the appearance of journals such as
Vértice, Laureados de España or Escorial, the Franco regime had no such thing as a medium- or longterm
aesthetic. Consequently, the new situation was not so much one of politically oriented art, but
simply and plainly the victory of the same aesthetic conservatism that had always been politically
powerful, and while challenged in prior decades by revitalising initiatives such as the exhibitions
organised by the Society of Iberian Artists or ADLAN (Amigos de las Artes Nuevas - Friends of the
New Arts), it had never been defeated. On the peninsula, the cities that had been most active prior
to 1936, Barcelona, Bilbao and Madrid, attempted to recover their impetus, little by little. Hesitantly,
1. De la Nuez Santana, José Luis: La abstracción pictórica en
Canarias. Dinámica histórica y debate teórico (1930-1970).
Gran Canaria Island Council, 1995, p. 33.
2. Mainer, José Carlos: La Edad de Plata (1902-1939). Ensayo
de interpretación de un proceso cultural. Madrid, Cátedra,
1981.
3. Brihuega, Jaime and Llorente, Ángel: Tránsitos. Artistas
españoles antes y después de la guerra civil. Madrid, Fundación
Caja Madrid, 1999.