Isaac Díaz Pardo

ISAAC DÍAZ PARDO (Santiago de Compostela, 1920 – A Coruña, 2012).
“People Gazing at the Sky of Galicia,” 1962.
Ink on paper.
Signed and dated in the lower right corner.
Measurements: 32 x 22 cm; 44 x 33 cm (frame).

An intellectual, painter, ceramicist, designer, and publisher, he was a multifaceted and versatile figure. In 2009, he received Spain’s Gold Medal for Merit in Fine Arts. The son of painter and set designer Camilo Díaz Baliño, his home was the site of various gatherings related to the Irmandades da Fala, of which Díaz Baliño was an active member and in which figures such as Castelao, Vicente Risco, Otero Pedrayo, Ramón Cabanillas, Antón Villar Ponte, Eduardo Blanco Amor, and Asorey. His father was shot by the rebels shortly after the start of the Spanish Civil War, forcing Isaac to go into hiding at first at his uncle Indalecio’s home in La Coruña, and later to work as a sign painter in the same city. After the war, he received a scholarship from the Provincial Council of La Coruña, which enabled him to study at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando in Madrid from 1939 to 1942. He then took a teaching position at the Royal Catalan Academy of Fine Arts of San Jorge in Barcelona and began exhibiting his work in Spain (La Coruña, Madrid, and Vigo) and abroad (Europe and the Americas). He later abandoned the visual arts, turning to ceramics and founding, along with other partners, the Cerámicas do Castro factory in Castro de Samoedo (Sada), experimenting with raw materials used in the early Sargadelos ceramics (in Cervo, created in the 19th century by Antonio Raimundo Ibáñez Llano y Valdés), and producing high-quality ceramics. In 1963, he established the Laboratorio de Formas in Argentina, together with other prominent Galician cultural figures such as Luis Seoane; this organization served as a precursor to other industrial and cultural initiatives, including the revival of Sargadelos ceramic production in collaboration with Cerámicas do Castro (1963), the Carlos Maside Museum (1970), the publishing house Ediciós do Castro (1963), the restored Seminario de Estudos Galegos (1970), the Instituto Galego de Información, and others. His leadership and administration of the Sargadelos Group were his best-known roles and would define his final years. As an essayist and critic, his notable works include *Xente do meu Rueiro*, *O ángulo de pedra*, *Galicia Hoy* (co-authored with Luis Seoane), *Paco Pixiñas* (with Celso Emilio Ferreiro), *El Marqués de Sargadelos*, *Castelao*, etc., in addition to a large number of articles in newspapers, such as *La Voz de Galicia*.