DELHY TEJERO, CREATION AND AVANT-GARDE RESISTANCE

2023-11-23 10:47:36

Africa Cabanillas Casafranca, Life of Delhy TejeroEila Editores, 2023

DELHY TEJERO, CREATION AND AVANT-GARDE RESISTANCE

Amparo Serrano de Haro

We interviewed the art historian África Cabanillas Casafranca, professor and researcher, regarding the publication of her book Life of Delhy Tejero, in Eila Editores. This is the first complete biography of the painter Delhy Tejero (Toro, Zamora, 1904-Madrid, 1968), one of the protagonists of the Spanish artistic renewal from the 1930s to the end of the 1960s.

A member of the Generation of ’27, she soon began to make a name for herself as a painter, but the Civil War caused her, when her career was consolidating, to leave the country, living in Italy and France—in Paris. Upon her return, she had to resume her artistic career in a country with a strict dictatorship, finding a difficult balance between her principles and the control of the State, becoming an outstanding painter and muralist and participating in the most important exhibitions of the time.

What elements, qualities or characteristics of Delhy Tejero and her work were the first things that caught your attention and led you to write her biography?

Her determination to dedicate herself to painting from a very young age, to be a professional artist. Delhy began her training in Toro, her hometown, and she had difficulties moving to Madrid with the aim of studying at the San Fernando School of Fine Arts, the most prestigious artistic education center of the time. Once in the capital, she had to start working on illustration, even before finishing her training, since she needed the money to cover her expenses. She always made her living through her painting: with the sale of her paintings, commissions—both public and private—and awards, in addition to teaching at the School of Arts and Crafts of Madrid during several years.

Also his great curiosity and desire for experimentation. Throughout his career, he dedicated himself to a wide variety of artistic mediums: illustration, drawing, easel and mural painting. As for styles, he began with figurative representation and went from regionalism to art Deco, passing through late-cubism and surrealism, until arriving at abstraction, both geometric and material. And in the techniques, if we only look at mural painting, he used traditional methods, such as fresco or tempera, as well as other modern ones, for example, nitrocellulose.

Delhy Tejero, in her studio-dwelling at the Palacio de la Prensa in Madrid, 1948

Delhy Tejero, Moussia, 1954

Why do you think Delhy Tejero is an artist who is still so unknown?

The first reason is that she is a very independent painter—she did not belong to any group—and difficult to classify, since she developed a very broad and eclectic career. Much emphasis has been placed on her dedication to illustration, linked to art Deco, in which he devoted himself, above all, to the end of the 1920s and the first half of the 1930s, but his artistic career was more diverse in many aspects, as I have just pointed out. Now this, because it is a woman, she has been evaluated negatively and has been given labels such as disoriented, insecure or hesitant; while, on the contrary, in the case of men it is usually considered something positive, original or novel.

The second is that he did not go into exile with the Civil War. Although he fled in 1937 from a country in conflict that could not stand, first to Italy and then to France, in August 1939, faced with the imminent occupation of Paris by the Nazis, he returned to Spain. So he had to maintain a difficult balance between his independence and the Franco regime’s will for control. This has led to the suspicion falling on her, to a greater or lesser extent—in my opinion, without foundation—of collaboration with the dictatorship, although she was purged, she did not belong to any of its institutions nor did she ever do “works.” Francoist”, propaganda or laudatory, although he did receive official commissions.

Would you say that Delhy Tejero was a surrealist at some point in her career? And, if so, what kind of surrealism was yours?

Yes, elements of surrealism can be found in a considerable part of his artistic production, in particular, the presence of magical characters and experimentation with different techniques, such as decalcomania. This is the case of the series of witches, which he made in the late 1920s and early 1930s, some fantastic beings, five muses or assistants, of whom he made abundant drawings, in addition to transferring them to other materials: cloth and brass. By representing the mysterious places in which the witches lived in the drawings, he showed some experimental techniques, such as decalcomania, which consists of applying ink stains on a paper that is still wet on top of another paper or surface on which it is applied. light pressure until these images are transferred. It is possible that with this technique he preceded the painter Óscar Domínguez in its creation, to whom the discovery is traditionally attributed, as a typically surrealist technique due to what it implies of chance.

However, it was during his stay in Paris, between 1938 and 1939, when, most likely through Remedios Varo—a friend of the San Fernando School of Fine Arts—he came into contact with the surrealist group with whose staff he exhibited. on one occasion, in the famous exhibition The dream in art and literature. From Antiquity to Surrealism from the Contemporary Gallery.

Unfortunately, we do not preserve almost any works from this period because before returning to Spain he destroyed them. The reason was his exaggerated conviction in theosophy’s dual conception of the human being—a doctrine that Delhy followed during this time—according to which, the body was physical and degrading, inferior or animal; in front of the superior and pure spirit. We can approach what he painted then from the drawings he made in his diary from 1939 and from later works, from the forties and fifties, influenced by this movement, for example, The arts y Musicfrom 1953 and 1954, respectively.

Delhy Tejero, The witches with Delhy Tejero1929

Delhy Tejero, The arts1953

In your opinion, was the internal exile that Delhy had to experience something that influenced his work a lot, little or not at all?

Without a doubt, it greatly influenced his work. His personal independence had to be developed within the very narrow limits allowed by Francoism. Since her return to Spain, and although she was purged and separated from her position as a professor of Mural Painting at the School of Arts and Crafts of Madrid – according to her file, due to her friendship with her “redder” teacher, the architect José Luis López -Izquierdo—, received official orders. With deep religious beliefs, she decorated churches and buildings of charitable institutions, specifically, several children’s soup kitchens of the Social Aid. However, as a “silent resistance”, she did not carry out those more political commissions, such as the decoration of a room in the Castillo de la Mota in Medina del Campo (Valladolid), the main command school of the Women’s Section.

Likewise, she was invited to many public exhibitions and competitions, such as the National Exhibitions of Fine Arts, Biennials and Ibero-American Exhibitions, although she was always denied the most prestigious awards.

She was not part of “her own” and was harmed by the sympathies she had shown with liberal ideas in her youth for the mere fact of dedicating herself to painting, a cultural activity in itself suspicious for the Franco regime. Even more so, being a woman and having been part of the artistic renewal. Furthermore, instead of staying during the Civil War in National-occupied Spain, she left the country and lived in Europe, particularly in Paris, a symbol of democratic resistance until the Nazi occupation and the center of the avant-garde.

What are the contributions to the understanding of his life and work from his diaries, The Notebooksfirst published in 2004, on the occasion of the centenary of his death?

The Notebooks They are one of the few examples of autobiographical writings, diaries or memoirs, published by Spanish women artists. Among her contemporaries, I only know those of Victorina Durán and Manuela Ballester.

In these diaries, nineteen notebooks—perhaps there were originally twenty, since it is probable that one has been lost—that he wrote from 1936 until almost his death in 1968 and that he never thought of publishing, speak very little about his work or art. It is a kind of relief in which he collects emotions: sadness, suffering, disappointment, frustration; As she herself acknowledges: “If I always write my little sorrows, why not say my little pleasures?”

I agree with most Delhy scholars and people who knew her that The Notebooks They only partially reflect his character, and that contrasts with what his painting represents: imagination, joy, taste for play, interest in color… In reality, the sum of both aspects would result in his personality.

Delhy Tejero, The little pins, The Notebooks1936-1968

You have investigated and fought, together with MAV-Andalucía, for the conservation of the mural in the lobby of the Office Building—the Cube—of the old Altadis Tobacco Factory in Seville, which Delhy Tejero did between 1965 and 1966. In what situation? is currently located?

The mural, made up of several friezes that ran along the walls and pillars, was dismantled last July and transferred to the Andalusian Institute of Historical Heritage for restoration. Unfortunately, this has meant a radical, total transformation of the work and the rupture of the unity of the decorative ensemble, both in format and theme, which had remained unchanged since its placement until now, over more than fifty years.

Furthermore, for the moment, we do not know the whereabouts of the screen that closed one of the sides of the lobby, which Delhy also designed with tobacco flowers, since, as in other cases, he conceived the work in a global way. We also do not know how the mural will be relocated once its restoration is completed. Certainly not in its original place, since a large public and open square is going to be created, the Plaza Cívica, which will include the entire lobby – its dimensions will be much larger and it will be connected to the square in front of the chapel.

Delhy Tejero, Decorative set (mural and screen) of the lobby of the Office Building of the Old Altadis Tobacco Factory in Seville, 1965-1966

Delhy Tejero, Detail of the mural in the lobby of the Office Building of the Old Altadis Tobacco Factory in Seville, 1965-1966

Africa Cabanillas Casafranca, Life of Delhy TejeroEila Editores, 2023