Antonio Oteiza

ANTONIO OTEIZA EMBIL (San Sebastian, 1926).
"The accordionist".
Glazed ceramic sculpture on wooden base.
Signed. With numbering.
Measurements: 23 x 13 x 10 cm (sculpture); 4 x 15 x 12 cm (base).

Antonio at the age of ten moved with his brother Ignacio to live in Orio, where he studied at the La Salle School in Zarauz. In 1945 he entered the Capuchin novitiate in Bilbao and began to study philosophy and theology, being ordained priest in Madrid by Bishop Eijo Garay in 1953. Assigned as a missionary in Báyamo (Cuba), he spent 5 years in Venezuela. Antonio began his career as an artist making his first works in the 50's. Back in Madrid in 1961, he proposed to his superiors to devote himself to religious art. He receives classes from the sculptor Victor de los Rios and the painter of San Fernando Amadeo Roca. He set up a workshop in the Capuchin convent of Cuatro Caminos (Madrid) and there he created his first works, perfectly figurative, as corresponds to the criteria of an academic training. There he creates pieces such as "San Francisco y el lobo", "San Francisco y las tórtolas" and two about Pau Casals. In these, the confluence or formal synthesis between organic rounded forms and sharp geometric planes can be appreciated. Antonio is slowly defining his style. He works with wood and stone. In the middle of the same year he is given permission to study art at the International School of Perugia (Italy). On his return, in 1963, Antonio exhibits in Vitoria with the Jesuit Santiago Montes. During these years he participates in the movement of renewal of religious art promoted by the Second Vatican Council. In October 1964 Antonio was forced to dismantle the Cuatro Caminos workshop, as he was assigned to La Coruña. There he resumed the practice of ceramics. Many of his works remain in Gijón, amounting to almost 20 works. In 1969 he spends a year in Aránzazu with his brother Jorge, where he works on the construction of the Basilica. His brother Jorge was chosen to head the work together with the architect Saénz de Oiza, the sculptors Lucio Muñoz and Eduardo Chillida, the painters Carlos Pascual de Lara and Néstor Basterrrechea and Fray Javier M. de Eulate, author of the stained glass windows. It is the only time that the two brothers will work together.