Equipo Crónica

EQUIPO CRONICA (Valencia, 1964 - 1981).
"El crimen de Cuenca", 1979.
Book copy 111/120.
Contains 12 original serigraphs signed and numbered.
Printed in Valencia by Serigrafías Ibero-Suiza.
With original text by Julio Caro Baroja.
Printed on Guarro paper in the Artes Gráficas Casaló workshops.
Measurements: 32 x 23 cm.

The title and theme refer to the infamous Crime of Cuenca that occurred in 1910. In this case, two innocent men were falsely accused, convicted and imprisoned for a murder they did not commit. Years later, it was discovered that the alleged victim was still alive. Equipo Crónica uses this event as a metaphor and a direct critique of institutional injustice and the arbitrariness of the judiciary during Franco's dictatorship.

Equipo Crónica, or Crónicas de la Realidad, was a group of Spanish painters active between 1964 and 1981. It was founded by Manolo Valdés, Juan Antonio Toledo, who soon left the group, and Rafael Solbes, whose death in 1981 put an end to the project. The historian and critic Tomás Llorens was also a member of the group. Equipo Crónica moved away from the prevailing informalism to cultivate a figurative painting, closely linked to pop-art. His style was a unique blend of realism, criticism, pop, pictorial quotations, anachronisms and bittersweet pastiches. There are works by Equipo Crónica in the IVAM in Valencia, the Reina Sofía Museum in Madrid, the MACBA in Barcelona, the Juan March Foundation and the Patio Herreriano Museum in Valladolid, among others. In 2007 an exhibition dedicated to Equipo Crónica was organized at the Museo de Arte Abstracto in Cuenca.