Jorge Castillo

JORGE CASTILLO CASALDERREY (Pontevedra, 1933).
"The look of the critic". 1960.
Oil on board.
Signed in the lower margin.
Measurements: 105 x 76 cm; 115 x 86 cm (frame).

The grotesque and caricatured character of "The look of the critic" reflects a demystifying vision of the "judges" of art. Castillo interprets with irony the role of the "connoisseurs", who judge and often deform the essence of a work from the outside or reduce it to mere categories.

The son of Spanish emigrants in Argentina, Jorge Castillo returned to Spain in 1957. He entered Madrid's artistic circles, and in 1958 he began to sell his drawings at the Biosca gallery. Little by little, he began to opt for the technique of engraving, which would finally become his main means of expression, although he would alternate it with painting. In 1960 he was selected for the São Paulo Biennial in Brazil. From then on he exhibited his work internationally, in galleries and museums in New York, San Francisco, Tokyo, Paris, Lisbon, Turin, Hanover, Dusseldorf and Geneva. He participated in the Venice Biennale in 1964 and 1976, and in 1970 he held a solo exhibition at the Nationalgalerie in Berlin, the first major museum exhibition dedicated to a specific period of his career. He won awards such as the International Drawing and Painting of Darmstadt, the City of Pontevedra and the Cultura Viva de las Artes Plásticas. He is represented in the Museum of Fine Arts of Lausanne, the Juan March Foundation, the National Galleries of Edinburgh and Berlin, the Museums of Modern Art of San Francisco and Vitoria, the Kunsthalle of Bremen, the Albertina of Vienna, the National Library of Spain and the Guggenheim of New York, among others.