CORRIDA

In 1927, Lorca and his friends (Bergamin, Alberti, Guillen...) were invited to Seville to commemorate the 300th anniversary of the death of the poet, Gongora. They were guests at the estate of Ignacio Sanchez Mejias, who had just retired from the bullring and who hosted them lavishly. Lorca --painter, musician and poet -- and his host, Sanchez Mejias -- famous bullfighter, writer, passionate lover of literature and music -- were destined to become friends. Ignacio had a close relationship with Encarnacion Lopez Julvez, the famous dancer and singer who was known as "Argentinita" (this poem is dedicated to her) and it was she who really sealed the friendship between the two men. Two years later, they would be seen together often, in New York, and on their return to Spain, Lorca would arrange popular songs for "La Argentinita". In 1934, perhaps for material reasons, perhaps to recapture the emotions of victory and of facing death, Sanchez Mejias, at the age of forty-three, returned to the bullring. He had to lose fifteen kilos in order to put on his "suit of lights". With just three more engagements as the Toreador-Poet, he had decided to quit the ring, once and for all. But the shadow of fate hovered over him. The wounded Domingo Ortega asked him to replace him at Manzanares on August 11th. Because of pride, Ignacio reluctantly agreed. At the beginning of the corrida, he was gored in the thigh. Lorca was in Santander. Alberti was travelling. Bergamin was present at the corrida and stayed by the wounded toreador's bedside. Ignacio was moved to Madrid, where he died on the morning of August 13th. Lorca was shattered by the news and, in September, wrote the poem. It was published in November of the same year. "There is nothing in the Spanish language more beautiful than this poem." To such praise, Lorca replied : "It is not the equal of four small verses sung by a gypsy in tears in Seville: "Little stars of the night/ Let me cross the bridge/ How I want to see my Ignacio/ Who is in his glowing chapel." (Marcelle Auclair "Enfances et mort de Garcia Lorca").

August Puig was born on April 1, 1929, in Barcelona, the son of an art teacher, as was Picasso. At the age of 17, Puig was awarded a scholarship from the French government to study in Paris,where he remained until 1952. This was the beginning of a long period of travelling around the world a unique adventure in painting. He flirted with various artistic movements before abandoning them: cubism, surrealism, cobra, etc... He spent time with Miró, Duchamp, Dali, Man Ray, Ernst, Michaux, Vieira da Silva, John Cage... If one had to put Puig into a category, it could be said that he is a symbolist painter of abstract surrealism. Amongst his works, one could point to the several series of oil on paper devoted to texts by Nietzsche, Neruda, Shakespeare and especially Lorca, to whom he is particularly devoted. Today, August Puig's works are exhibited with those of Miró, Ernst, Dali and many others artists, but he remains a painter better known to connoisseurs than the public at large. This is partially the result of a character that is reserved when it comes to his own art and, to a much greater extent, the result of his total detachment from the commercial world of art and the publicity that attends it. In 1962, August Puig created "69 images on the poem "Lament for Ignacio Sanchez Mejias" by Garcia Lorca". The series of oil paintings on paper of various sizes (9 to 34 cm) reflects the verse and metaphor of the poet through dimension, form and colour. Words are transformed into abstract images, the colours occur and merge... "and the walls of the arena open onto a vision of the beyond"
Firsts exhibits of the complet work : French Institute of Barcelona autumn 1996 Institute Cervantes Paris 5 th march 1997 Editions du Choucas has published the book CORRIDA with the 69 Puig's oils and with the tauromachies of Goya and Picasso in their enterity.