Collection: Manuel Carmona ┃ Surrealist Work

Pablo Neruda:

This Manuel Carmona is a devil. He creates nothing from nothing and transfigures this emptiness with papers, scissors, fish, birds, truths, and static, joyful dreams. I always celebrated his original joy, his lavish irreverence that delights in everyone's pleasure. That is his power. This Carmona doesn't abstain from the pleasure of beauty: he takes advantage of it while it's flying. And that's how he can give us a butterfly every day.

Nothing foreshadowed that a humble, simple, pacifist, and somewhat naive person, much like his painting style, would live through such momentous events of the 20th century. At a very young age, Manuel Carmona (Barcelona 1916 – Zaragoza 2001) came into contact with the Generation of '27, a group of artists such as Rafael Alberti, Federico García Lorca—with whom he maintained a relationship until Lorca's execution—Juan Ramón Jiménez, José Bergamín, Luis Cernuda, and Vicente Aleixandre. They were joined by Salvador Dalí—whose famous "Invisible Man" Manuel Carmona witnessed being created by—Gala, and filmmakers like Buster Keaton, who would forever influence the artist's sensibility. Like so many others, he experienced the tragedy of the Spanish Civil War, which he fought until the very end, because there was no other option, serving in the Republican Armored Corps. This earned him four years of imprisonment in prisoner-of-war camps and another six years of a less restrictive prison sentence.

In 1949, through the intervention of his brother Darío, a journalist and Pablo Neruda's secretary, Manuel Carmona managed to flee to Chile on a ship chartered by Neruda himself. Welcomed with open arms, like so many others fleeing Franco's regime, Carmona declared: "I had encountered a new world, a people whose philosophy and sense of hospitality is more than a patriotic courtesy: a conviction that fraternity is a moral obligation." With his proverbial humility, Manuel Carmona began to perform numerous jobs related to scientific and cultural organizations thanks to his connections with Rafael Gumuncio, Undersecretary of Finance; José Ramón Gutiérrez Allende, Minister of Foreign Affairs; and Salvador Allende, who was very close to Carmona's brother, Darío, whom his daughters called "uncle," and who was even applauded in Santiago's Plaza Bulnes by the future President. Manuel Carmona first exhibited in Santiago, Chile, in 1953 under the patronage of the French Cultural Institute and dedicated himself increasingly to painting, creating works that were both naive and slightly surreal, characterized by dreamlike worlds with highly stylized figures inhabiting poetic landscapes. From then on, he held numerous exhibitions in several South and Central American countries, meeting other artists and poets such as Mario Benedetti, as well as singular figures like Rigoberto López, the future assassin of Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza. Manuel Carmona organized the First Visual Arts Fair in Santiago, Chile. Manuel Carmona and Pablo Neruda.

In the 1970s, Manuel Carmona returned to Spain and dedicated himself exclusively to painting, exhibiting throughout the country. In 1998, the Generation of '27 Cultural Center published his memoirs, "Heir to Surrealism: A Testimony," which Carmona hesitated to write, considering it an act of vanity. In 2001, the year of his death, a second edition appeared, titled "Everything Lived Through," containing many fascinating excerpts, such as his encounter with Queen Victoria Eugenie of Battenberg, which had been omitted by an artist who always preferred to remain in the shadows.

WORKS IN MUSEUMS
Barcelona Museum of Modern Art
Museum of Fine Arts of Santiago, Chile
Museum of Contemporary Art of Managua, Nicaragua
Max Fourny Museum in Paris, France
Footwear Museum Foundation, Elda-Alicante
Museum of Contemporary Primitive Art, Jaén
Ivam Centre Julio González, Valencia
Museum of the Angels. Turégano, Segovia

SOLO EXHIBITIONS
1953. Santiago, Chile
1959. Montevideo
1973. Gaudí Room - Gaudifond Arte, Barcelona
Cap Gross Hall, Barcelona
Monzón City Council
1974. Edaf, Madrid
1975. S'Art Gallery, Huesca
1977. Galerie d'Art Helof. Paris, France
Mas Sardá Bank Gallery, Palma de Mallorca
1980. Goya Art Gallery, Zaragoza
1983. Tobella Archive Room, Terrassa
1984. House of Culture, Denia

" GROUP EXHIBITIONS
1957. National Tourism Board, San Salvador

1958. Institute of Marine Biology. Valparaíso

1960. First International Fair of Visual Arts, Santiago, Chile

1965. Houston, Texas

1974. “3 Art Walls of the Schools” UNESCO, Barcelona

“Exhibition 74” Gaudí Room - Gaudifond Arte, Barcelona

1975. Gaudí Room - Gaudifond Arte, Barcelona

“The cat in naïve art” Modena Room, Madrid

“Contemporary Spanish Naïve Art” National Board of Museums, Madrid

1976. International Biennial “Merignac” Bordeaux

II Biennial of Painting

Berdusán Gallery, Zaragoza

1978. “Exhibition of contemporary Catalan painting” Padrós Gallery, SA Barcelona

1979. S'Art Gallery, Huesca

1981. “Artistes Plastics de Catalunya” Palau de la Santa Creu. La Pedrera Gallery, Barcelona

Mobar Art Room, Terrassa

1982. “Aspects of Figurative Painting” Gaudí Hall - Gaudifond Arte, Barcelona

Mediterranean Art Gallery, Alicante

Savings Bank of Alicante and Murcia (Elche, Alcoy, Crevillente, Villena, Bañeres and Calpe)

First Naïf Art Salon, Roglán Gallery, Barcelona

1984. Richelieu Gallery, Madrid

1985. Savings Bank of San Fernando, Seville

1986. Montignac, France

1987. Seville

1988. Malaga

1989. Madrid

1990. Valencia

1991. Huesca

1992. Calpe, Alicante

1993. The Gallery 12 bis, Villafranca

Seville

1994. Zaragoza

1997. Calpe, Alicante

1998. Granada

1999. Barcelona

Saragossa

Calpe, Alicante

2000. Denia, Alicante

The excitement for going to the beach stemmed from the fact that Gala bathed naked. The beach was in a small cove, inaccessible from Torremolinos. I stood there, mesmerized, behind Dalí, at the kiosk, while the painter worked his magic. He was painting a large canvas in which, through a harmonious landscape of distant horizons and clouds, he created a scene.
The voluminous shapes began to reveal a human being who filled the entire space, the air, the clouds—I think they were part of his head—and among the clouds, I believe, an eye appeared. The mystery was becoming clearer as he progressed with his painting. The entire landscape, in its transparency, revealed a man, "The Invisible Man ," that's the name of the painting, which I watched being created, remaining silent. There I did my rehearsals, my first tentative attempts to say something with my brushes. I remember I painted an octopus with many arms and human hands. Dalí praised it and traded it for one of his own drawings, with delicate lines and, in full color, a green sailor's cap. It remained there, like so many things, tucked away in a textbook, lost amidst wars and postwar periods.