Manuel Alcorlo
Destrozones y tancredos

Etchings and aquatint

13 etchings and aquatint, 50 x 65 cm, in colour. Print run of 175 copies.

All the etchings are hand-signed by the artist.

The artist conceived this work to represent the playful aspect of the bullfighting festival in the different villages of Spain.

Thus we have: the Amposta Bull, the Ball-horned Bull, the Medinaceli Bull, Julito’s Bull…

Text and illustrations by Manuel Alcorlo

Further information

Spanish painter, engraver and draughtsman. Between 1947 and 1952 he studied art at the Arts and Crafts School, the Moncloa School of Ceramics and the San Fernando Fine Arts Circle.

He lived in Rome from 1960 to 1964, on a scholarship from the Spanish Academy, after winning one of the scholarships for painting advertised by that institution. Illustrated texts by Cervantes, Columela, Quevedo, Apuleyo, Juan Ramón Jiménez and Neruda with lithography and etching.

Together with engraver Dimitri Papaghergiu he creates the “Collection of Spanish Engraving Artists” called Boj. His concern with drawing, expressed throughout his career, is outstanding and led him to win the Mapfre Drawing Prize in 1983.

Thanks to this mastery of drawing, his compositions are orderly with an accurate distribution of colours and shapes. His painting, always figurative, is characterised by the presence of humour and poetry, which allows him to ironize society.

His scenes, populated by somewhat bizarre characters, are enveloped in a surrealist and expressionist atmosphere with a satirical tone, being more sympathetic than critical. In 1998 he was made a member of the San Fernando Royal Academy of Fine Arts.