José Luis Zumeta

Remembering Zumeta.

We present a new exhibition of José Luis Zumeta, painter of the gallery and one of the key figures in the artistic Basque scene of the decade of the 1960s and who passed away in 2020. With “Remembering Zumeta” we want to vindicate an artist who contributed to renew the artistic panorama of the post-civil war Spain.

After years following his work, in 2018 we could meet José Luis and his daughter Usoa when we visited his studios in San Sebastian and Navarre to prepare his first solo show with us. Zumeta was an affable man, quiet and not much of a talker, his rotund work spoke on his behalf. The explosion of color and gestures of his paintings made it difficult to choose which ones would be included in our exhibition. It was a magnificent work, passionate, violent, and brave.

The key of Zumeta’s painting is color, as he put it: “to me, color is the basic pillar to continue a painting. Color is emotion, and through the emotions you create an energy that gives sense to everything. The shape is acquired thanks to the colors. The beginning is emotional, and it is color who tells me how to continue, what do I have to do, add, or take away. To feel, to believe… To me it is just the same. I can’t choose just one: I can have times preferring one to another, but I need them all”-

We have had the immense luck of having met an exceptional artist, a wonderful human being and a renovator of the post-civil war Basque painting. Alongside Oteiza or Chillida among others, he founded the GAUR group, a movement that shook the plastic scene of Euskadi in the second half of the 20^th Century.

The exhibition “Remembering Zumeta” can be visited until January 8^th, 2022.