Jorge Castillo

JORGE CASTILLO CASALDERREY (Pontevedra, 1933).
“Barrabás.” Berlin, 1973.
Oil on canvas.
Signed, dated, and located. Titled on the reverse.
Measurements: 60 x 50 cm; 62 x 52 cm (frame).

From childhood, Jorge Castillo was passionate about drawing, and at just ten years old, he created his first copy of a Rubens painting using colored pencils. According to Castillo, Rubens’s paintings taught him to understand the Cubism of Braque and Picasso. He has lived in Argentina, Spain, France, Italy, Germany, and the United States, and has resided in Ibiza since 2008. He grew up in Buenos Aires, where he spent long hours at the port, in addition to devoting his time to painting and writing. Around this time, he began exhibiting his paintings, eventually showing his work at the Salón de Mayo. He also published poems and short stories in magazines. However, at the age of twenty-two, he decided to leave his hometown and move to Paris. For financial reasons, though, he settled in Spain—specifically in Madrid—where he spent six years, from 1957 to 1963, the first three of which he lived as a vagrant. Nevertheless, his encounters with Viola and Jorge Cela—who were impressed by his drawings—would change the course of his life. Around this time, he gradually began to focus on the technique of printmaking, which would henceforth become one of his primary means of expression. He then began to make a name for himself as an artist, selling his first works and establishing some important contacts, under the patronage of Luis González Robles, who took him to the São Paulo Biennial in 1960. There, his works caused a sensation and received rave reviews, and during these years he also exhibited in Madrid and Barcelona, as well as in San Francisco, Lisbon, Pittsburgh, and Tokyo. And it was in 1964—the year he participated in the Venice Biennale—that the doors to Paris finally opened for him, thanks to the contract he signed with the art dealer André Schoeller. In 1967, Castillo left Paris and moved to Geneva, though he soon left that city to settle in Boissano, Italy. In 1969, he was invited by the German government to work in Berlin, where he would reside until 1975. In 1970, he exhibited at the Nationalgalerie in the German capital—the first major museum exhibition dedicated to a specific period of his career—and later at numerous Berlin galleries. When he left Berlin, Castillo moved to Barcelona, by which time he was a recognized painter in Europe and the Americas. There, he exhibited regularly at the Joan Prats Gallery and met Salvador Dalí. Around this time, he began visiting New York and eventually settled there in 1981, remaining in the city until 1992. There, he was represented by the prestigious Marlborough Gallery, and his successes continued. Throughout his career, Castillo won awards such as the Darmstadt International Drawing and Painting Prizes, the City of Pontevedra Prize, and the Cultura Viva Prize for the Visual Arts. His work is currently represented in the Lausanne Museum of Fine Arts, the Juan March Foundation, the National Galleries of Edinburgh and Berlin, the Museums of Modern Art in San Francisco and Vitoria, the Kunsthalle in Bremen, the Albertina in Vienna, the National Library of Spain, and the Guggenheim in New York, among others.