VERSIÓN INGLESA ENGLISH VERSION - Fundación César Manrique

4. Jiménez-Blanco, María Dolores: Arte y Estado en la España
del siglo XX. Madrid, Alianza, 1989.
5. Pantorba, Bernardino de: Historia y Crítica de las
Exposiciones Nacionales de Bellas Artes celebradas en España.
Madrid, ed. García-Rama, 1980, p. 306-310.
and despite a virtual lack of a community of collectors, a few galleries reopened. In Barcelona, the Syra,
Argos, Augusta, Pictoria galleries, the Gaspar Showroom, the Mediterranea bookshop or the French
Institute began to undertake activities which, while not radically innovative, did at least mean a return
to some degree of normality. In Madrid, traditional establishments such as the Circle of Fine Art or
the Cano and Vilches Showrooms were slowly joined by others, more open to novelty; these included
the Biosca and Estilo galleries and, later, the Palma, Neblí, Sagra, Clan and Buchholz galleries and, finally
in 1953, the Fernando Fe gallery, founded with the participation of César Manrique, among others.
Official activity in the Madrid of the forties, in turn, became the stronghold of a new
conservatism. The teaching staff of the San Fernando Royal Academy of Fine Art, where César
Manrique, like so many other artists of his generation, enrolled in 1945 in pursuit of better technical
training, included Manuel Benedito, Pérez Comendador, or Chicharro, all staunch defenders of
tradition. Their influence was offset by others, such as Vázquez Díaz, who, while adapting his
iconography and public statements to the new situation, could, in a way, bridge the gap between the
circumstances prevailing at the time and pre-civil war avant-gardism, conveying his memories of
Parisian cubism or Madrilenian ultraism, to which he had been so close, along with a much freer sense
of painting. The Museum of Modern Art, in turn, the only governmental institution existing at the time
to promote the collection of contemporary art, which was headquartered in the National Library,
inverted the progressive course charted by Juan de la Encina, the director during the Republic, to
create a languishing entity, designed to be a mere receptacle for the works that were awarded prizes
in National Fine Art Exhibitions or organiser of showings in which there was little or no commitment
to the most recent art 4 . Insofar as the national exhibitions were concerned, the names of the winning
authors and titles in the 1941 edition - Julia Minguillón for La Escuela de Doloriñas (Doloriñas’ School),
Francisco Núñez Losada for Valle de Liébana (Liébana Valley), or José Suárez Peregrín, for Los
caminantes de Emaús (The Emaús wayfarers) - 5 are eloquent proof of how distant that environment
was from the effervescent modernity of the twenties and thirties in Spain and of everything that
meant being open to international currents. These were the years of autarchy, which was particularly
hard on culture.
At the same time, in Madrid the so-called Academia Breve de Crítica de Arte (Brief Academy of Art
Critique) initiated its activity; despite its minority and elitist nature, the academy would eventually be
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