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Introduction

“ ... I’ve painted on anything and with anything, even with shoe polish” (1)

José María Párraga Luna (Alumbres 1937-Murcia 1997) was an exceptional and unique artist. During more than 40 years he created a surprising, daunting, and most of all, a really personal artwork which was also immense, since it is believed that he made tens of thousands of works.

It is fairly easy to find one of his artworks throughout the whole Region of Murcia and in nearby localities, mostly in private houses and specially in Murcia city, where he lived for more than 10 years and was formed as an artist and a unique person.

During the end of the 1950’s José María (as he signed his paintings in the beginning) went to the School of Arts and Crafts, where he attended classes of Luis Garay, Mariano Ballester, Nuria Sureda... He was also a regular in some workshops of the city, where he would share his experiences with an exceptional generation of artists.

His wide formation during those years allowed him to deal with any kind of project that emerged from his endless creative capacity with astonishing ease and confidence.

His drawings are well-known: “... Painting is difficult for me. However, drawing is not...” (2) as well as his collages and pyrographies “... I like the sobriety of pyrographies, its apparent simplicity and, at the same time, its difficulty...” (3). However, in our opinion, his work as a muralist deserved much more attention from the sources that we have consulted, which cited him frequently but in a rather superficial way.

This is the reason why we decided to locate and document this rich patrimony -sometimes unfortunately lost or aggressively repainted-, with the restoration of the murals in Floridablanca High-school (2014-1016) as a starting point. The results have been published, almost in real time, in the web page that we’ve been developing since March 2017, www.pintorparraga.com, which is still in progress.

Taking part of this information about the murals into account, the Integra Foundation has produced a documentary which widens the conception of the versatility of this artist.

During this time, many works have appeared in various private collections with diverse topics, bases, techniques and procedures. Párraga’s complete technical formation and his interest in investigating any material available to him are reflected in the -inevitably incomplete- selection that we exhibit here.

Moreover, anyone who knew him in person wouldn’t be surprised to see how he is still loved nowadays, even 20 years after his death. Each and every work hides many stories, anecdotes and memories among its strokes. They talk about generosity, greatness... and they refuse to leave its material work.

(1) La Verdad. 23- IX-1990
(2) Segado del Olmo, A. 7 pintores con Murcia al fondo. Sala Ed. Madrid 1977. Pág. 123
(3) La Verdad. 1- II- 1990

 

Fernando Ureña Villanueva

Antonio Hernández Valcárcel

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