The association was established in 2011 with the aim of managing and inventorying the vast pictorial legacy of the distinguished landscape painter, who passed away on April 25, 2011. It is now dissolving after donating all its funds to the Arrasate City Council.
The entity safeguarded a collection that includes 638 works received from the painter's heirs, supplemented by some paintings lent by private individuals. It is estimated that the artist may have painted around three thousand works during his long life, but the association has only been able to identify and inventory approximately half of them.
“"Galarta was the artist who painted the most paintings of Álava."
With the donated funds, the City Council will inaugurate an exhibition next Friday the 15th, showcasing the painter's “most representative” work. About one hundred oil paintings will be displayed, mostly landscapes, but also including some still lifes, florals, and portraits. The latter belong to recognizable figures for older generations.
The exhibition will be titled artistaren begirada (the artist's gaze), and will remain on display in the Kulturate cloister until June 20. During its 15 years of activity, the Association of Friends of Painter Galarta has organized two previous exhibitions in Kulturate and one in the Vital Kutxa hall in Gasteiz in 2015, which brought together the immense landscape production the artist painted in Álava.
The painter was, above all, “a landscape artist and a painter of the countryside,” and his beret and portable easel-backpack attest to his predilection for outdoor painting. He remained faithful to his personal style and technique, “which combined the Catalan school with Basque figuration,” leading him to achieve significant chromatic mastery.
