Adolfo Bartolomé

ADOLFO BARTOLOMÉ GARCÍA (Gijón, 1937).
"Characters", 1969.
Etching, artist's proof.
Signed, dated and justified at the bottom.

Painter, engraver and teacher, Adolfo Bartolomé combines his artistic activity with artistic pedagogy: he began his teaching career in 1972 as assistant professor in the Chair of Drawing at the Escuela Superior de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, in Madrid, and since the eighties he held a position as professor of art at the University of Navarra. An eclectic painter, he was deeply influenced in his first stage by Evaristo Valle, and later he was also impressed by the work of Martínez Abades. He develops a language halfway between magical realism and expressionism, based on a short palette of whites, blacks and earthy tones. After beginning his career in Spain, being awarded the third medal at the National Exhibition of Fine Arts in 1966, he moved to Italy to further his training in 1961. Later, in 1968, he was awarded the Grand Prix de Rome in Painting. In the Italian capital, where he remained until 1974, Bartolomé matured his language in contact with the art of Greco-Latin Antiquity and the Renaissance. There he will make the international leap, being invited to the Biennial of Graphic Art of Florence and publishing his first series of engravings with the Swiss firm Fiorino. Also known as Bartholomé, this artist has held several exhibitions in Spain and abroad, and today is represented in various private collections.