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Artika officially presents its latest publication, Sorolla’s landscapes
Last Monday, 19th September, Artika presented its latest publication, Sorolla’s landscapes, at the Sorolla Museum in Madrid. The work represents a journey, accompanied by the artistic genius, through the different places and scenes that he visited, painted and loved during the course of his life, in a limited, numbered edition of 2,998 copies.
During the presentation, Mr. Juan Ribalta, the CEO of Artika, gave one copy of the work to the museum director, Mrs Consuelo Luca de Tena, and another to Mrs Blanca Pons Sorolla, the president of the Sorolla Foundation and the artist’s great-granddaughter, in their capacity as representatives for the two institutions.
This spectacular work is a homage to one of Joaquín Sorolla’s great passions – painting outdoors, using nature as his model. He discovered this predilection at a very early age, when he was a student. A number of his classmates have said that before the young Sorolla came into class at 8 o’clock in the morning, he had already been out wandering around the outskirts of Valencia, where he would go to paint landscapes.
Sorolla’s landscapes, conceived by Artika and the Sorolla Foundation, is comprised of an Art Book, which contains 71 drawings, reproduced in facsimile format, on the theme of landscapes, all of which have been die-cut in accordance with the originals and glued into the book. This painstaking selection, made by the Sorolla Museum, shows all the different types of landscape that the artist sketched and the various techniques he used: pencil, charcoal, ink, chalk, watercolours and gouache. The book also includes two plates, of great artistic value, which are presented in Art Folders that have been designed to be exhibited separately and individually.
Furthermore, the work includes a Study Book, a volume that in itself makes this a unique work; it takes us into the life and work of the artist, helping us to understand it better through commentaries from leading experts, including the painter’s great-granddaughter, Blanca Pons-Sorolla, researchers at the Sorolla Museum and the Director for the Conservation of 19th-century Paintings at the Prado Museum.
Finally, we should mention that all these elements are presented in a striking case, made by hand and comprised of two methacrylate sections, 2.5 cm thick, with the artist’s signature engraved on them. This case is like a window looking onto the landscapes that Sorolla lived in, enjoyed and painted.