The exiled painter who returned to Orio

Luis Cisneros, with two of his works, in his workshop in Orio. / josé mari lopez

Luis Cisneros

Former councilman threatened by ETA and from a family repressed by the Franco regime, seeks a place to show his work on the 50th anniversary of his first exhibition

At 88 years old, he is looking for a place in Donostia to exhibit his work, since in 2023 it will be 50 years since his first exhibition. We are talking about Luis Cisneros (Carranza, Vizcaya, 1934), former PSOE councilor in Orio, teacher and painter, first as a hobby and now as a vocation. He has mounted some 50 exhibitions with his work and has painted more than 800 paintings. He rubbed shoulders with Chillida and Ruiz Balerdi, exhibited several times at the San Telmo museum, which houses one of his works, and was looking for a place in Donostia to exhibit his work, especially his large oil paintings of the cosmos. «I would like to do it in the Kubo room or in San Telmo, a way to close the circle», he says.

The life of Luis Cisneros has taken many turns. From his native Carranza, to the little town of Megeces in Valladolid, where his father, an officer in the republican army, was a ‘mole’: he hid for 10 years. From there to Orio, where the threats from ETA led him to go into exile for 6 years in Andorra. There he worked in the Spanish schools that were in the principality. Already in retirement, he settled with his wife in Roquetas de Mar, in Almería. Two years ago he returned to Orio, where he continues to paint.

Luis Cisneros has known repression by the Franco regime and by ETA. “My father was prevented from working as a teacher,” he relates. My mother was also a teacher and she never left her job. She was a modern woman, very open-minded. Born into a ‘good’ family from Santander, she had to spend most of her life in a small town in Valladolid. The 4 children were born there and the 4 of us studied to become teachers».

Friend of great painters

Luis Cisneros lived through the cultural expansion of the 70s, which led him to rub shoulders with great artists such as Chillida or Ruiz Balerdi. “We studied Basque in a place that was at the back of San Telmo,” he recalls. «To Chillida, not as well known then as now, we organized a great tribute. I keep with great affection an engraving by Chillida and another by Ruiz Balerdi. Chillida, whom I helped with transfers and installations, bought some of my works. One of them, very colorful and inspired by galaxies, was on display at Nice for a long time».

In his workshop in Orio he has placed his immense mural on Basque mythology that his friend Enrique Casas encouraged him to paint, whose death at the hands of ETA cried inconsolably, as well as that of his colleague Juan Priede, who replaced him in the City Council of Orio when he left him to go to Andorra. «What I was able to shout before a group of ETA supporters who always looked the other way».

Try to live in peace. “Life is life even if there is pain,” she says. He enjoys his family, especially his granddaughters and his grandson, and helps his wife, who uses a wheelchair. «In Gipuzkoa we have more help for the elderly than we find in Almería», he says.