 The
figure of the extravagant Urbano Lugris is not very well known. He
was born around1908, son of the great galleguist Manuel Lugris, who
was president of the Galician Royal Academy. Urbano Lugris lived intense
cultural relations with Hispanic intellectuals like Dieste, Laxeiro,
Lorca, Alberti...
His painting style shows parallelisms with surrealists
like Magritte and the metaphysical Chirico, both creators of dreamy
visions and very personalized spaces. His work is strongly influenced
by the Celtic imaginary and by the ocean, ever defined by the blue
colour of his Galicia.
He discovered Bergantinos through Pondal's poetry,
who he had personally known being with his father in the galleguist
gatherings at the Cova Celtiga in Corunna. So that, in 1951 he moved
to Malpica during four months to decorate the Casa do Pescador (Fishermen's
House). There he was definitively captured by Bergantinos' beauty,
spending the days in the typical taverns and singing in the choir:
Malpica
de Bergantinos,
El-Rei te quixo vender:
Para comprar Malpica
moitos cartos hai que ter.
Malpica
de Bergantinos,
the King wanted to sell you:
The one who wants to buy Malpica
a lot of money he must have.
Inspired by Malpica's seafaring life, Lugris'
paintbrush bequeathed eight different paintings to the Casa do Pescador's
walls. These paintings are a tribute to both Sisargas' landscape
and to Malpica's sailors. The murals possess all the same composition,
based on a poetic text with the image of an open window to a marine
landscape.
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