Page 18 - Studio International - October 1966

A statement by Mompo

Mompo is a Spaniard, a painter whose work is gay and attracts his curiosity, my work notices that which
yet serious in intention. The exhibition of Spanish serves for painting.
Painting at the Tate Gallery in 1962 presented an aspect A grey window next to a red shirt.
of Spanish painting that has tended to be accepted as A brown shoulder against a white wall.
representing all that is interesting in contemporary A purple woman selling under an umbrella.
Spanish painting; large textured surfaces with severe The spectacle of the street is in constant change and
and sombre shapes and colours. Mompo is of the same motion.
generation as many of these painters and he presents I want my work to have the same restlessness.,
another, more intimate facet of the Spanish imagina- I give great importance to colour because I feel that
tion. The scale is smaller, the colours warm or bold and colour establishes the given mood. I want my colours
never oppressive. to be clean, legible, condensed. I always insist on:
His own very interesting account of his work (given Calculating the visual weight of the entire picture.
below) records his interest in 'the magical world of the On balancing the total.
street', in light, and that his point of departure is the On each tone or colour having a life of its own.
paintings of children. The account is- clear and helps us On variety.
to come to a quick understanding of the paintings. The On measure in terms of colour.
images that illustrate the original text are similar to On matching mood to colour. Hernandez Mompo, born in Valencia in 1927,
those of a child of five or six. Already at this age a child's On using colour not learnt but known. studied at the Escuela Superior de Bellas Artes in
drawing is complex. The figure paintings usually repre- On having one of the colours, purer or more impor- his native city. He visited Paris in 1951, and later
sent some incident that has captured the child's tant than the rest, in command. spent a year in Italy. In 1958, a year after returning
to Spain, he won the Juan March Prize
attention, the incident may be real or fictional, and the I prepare my canvas in luminous greys, like tarnished
drawing is how the child represents it; but even while silver-subservient tones.
doing so the child may modify the drawing to make it Over this base I paint in oils, thinly, broadly, minim-
more interesting as a complete image. Mompo takes ally, leaving areas untouched. I never insist on a
this process a great deal further and the original colour once it has been laid down. I want to see with-
incident is usually unrecognizable as more than an out effort where the stroke begins and where it ends—
atmosphere or feeling, so that the final painting may be how it was done. I also use charcoal, pastels and dry
abstract. These paintings represent another and success- pigments; honest materials that serve to indicate
ful attempt to develop the emotional potential that is what I want.
hidden in the simple forms of a child's drawing.
A. P. Carter What I paint
Bands, dogs, balloons, suns, moons, umbrellas.
I base my work on reality. On the life that surrounds Ragpickers, Vendors
us, that stands before us. Buyers, markets, carts, hurdy-gurdies, windows,
I want it to be the reflection of what we see. I am not a bars, donkeys, doors, musicians, store-windows,
dealer in anecdotes; I deal in scenes without import- trees, birds, roads, bicycles.
ance. People who talk
A greeting. Who laugh, who gossip, tables, chairs.
The shadow of a hat on a wall, Peasants
the way someone runs. Dances, processions, joys, rich and poor, stalls,
That element of reality, hidden from the observer, shops, pilgrimages, roosters, wheels, shouts, hats,
that unconsciously remains, seen, but not captured, people waiting in line.
existing in terms of light and shape. . . . I want these Streets and Squares
painterly sensations to belong to the viewer. Open mouths, fruit shops, street lamps, transistor
I want to interpret the entire magical world of the radios, canopies, umbrellas.
street, underlining moods and situations for the People Rushing About
pleasure of the viewer. On a flat surface I want to Women in long skirts and aprons, scooters, clouds,
display all that is alive in the humdrum of everyday light...
life. I want to build a world both positive and healthy. Those confused almost-words that I hear in the street
In the same way that a stroller only notices what without managing to understand Them find their
place, sometimes, in my pictures in the
shape of single letters
'I paint rapidly.
I like the liveliness in the spontaneous,
the direct.
I like what is said well and with purpose.
I destroy the dull and the clumsy.
I want a finished picture to hold a con-
stant discovery of detail.
I want to suggest, never to teach.

The drawings by Mompo illustrated
on this and the facing page are
reproduced by courtesy of McRoberts
and Tunnard Gallery