Exhibitions in Sales (2019)

SALÓN ANTONIO WELCOME. FROM THE 12 TO THE 20 OF MAY

On the occasion of the start of the San Isidro Fair 2019, the Center for Bullfighting Affairs of the Community of Madrid organized an exhibition in tribute to Isabel Natividad, known in the bullfighting world as "the teacher Nati", a pioneer figure in bullfighting tailoring .

Isabel has dedicated her whole life to dressing the leading figures of bullfighting. With her more than 80 years, they still go to her and her son, Enrique Vera, to order them embroidered walking capes, their specialty.

"The teacher Nati" began in the profession as a child in José Uriarte's workshop, when she helped her mother sew after school. To this day, right-handers like José Tomás still contact the “Maestra Nati” tailor shop –founded at the end of the Civil War- to order their capes for a walk. Precisely some of these designs, a dozen in total, could be seen in the Antonio Bienvenida Room of Las Ventas within the exhibition "Twelve capes to dream."

Each of the pieces was a work of craftsmanship that included part of the history of bullfighting, such as, for example, a replica of the emblematic cloak with the Virgin of the Dove that Nati's mother sewed for "Antoñete"; or the black with chevrons, embroidered in gold and with flowers that Curro Vázquez wore and that he later gave to his nephew, Cayetano Rivera Ordóñez. They also emphasized, for their beauty and virtuosity, the capes of walk with religious reasons, like the virgins of the Macarena, the Hope of Triana, the Rocio, Guadalupe or the Christ of the Three Falls. Another curiosity was a cape embroidered in gold with the Aztec calendar, an exact copy of the one made in 1975, designed by John Fulton and the master herself.

SALÓN ANTONIO WELCOME. FROM THE 21 TO THE 29 OF MAY

The Center for Bullfighting Affairs of the Community of Madrid, in collaboration with the Junta de Castilla y León, inaugurated in the Antonio Bienvenida Room of the Las Ventas bullring the exhibition “From the trace to the light: Goya's Bullfighting in the photographs of Kallmeyer ”. In 2014, Aku Estebaranz, author of publications on historical photography, deposited in the Filmoteca de Castilla y León the negatives that make up the series that the photographer Roberto Kallmeyer (Madrid, 1915 - Madrid, 2004) made of Francisco de Goya's engravings for the edition of the Bullfighting that Rafael Casariego published in 1960. Since then, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the Junta de Castilla y León, the Filmoteca and the owner began to study a new way of making known the existence of this unique material in an exhibition that came to Las Ventas.

The originality of the sample lay in the search for unusual points of view through the possibilities offered by the enlargement of the image. For the first time in Madrid, the visitor could admire in detail the faces of the characters that are the protagonists of the fight, the activity in the ring, their attire and tools for bullfighting, the tension, the danger and the public that populates the tiers of the rudimentary squares of the early nineteenth century.

The exhibition allowed us to appreciate the meticulousness that Goya achieved with his work as a painter and engraver and to recover it through these extensions. Chronologically, Bullfighting is the third of the series of the graphic work of Goya that, together with Whims, was marketed under the supervision of the artist himself in the post-Napoleonic era. These engravings have the value and the expressive and documentary force of some representations of the Spanish reality that still could not be collected by the photographic invention, and which are of high ethnographic and historical interest.

Goya worked the copper plates around 1815, still affected by the episodes of the War of Independence of which he was a direct witness. That lived violence is transmitted to his bullfighting prints, reflecting a high degree of drama. Their traces show us the true protagonists of bullfighting: the man and the bull.

SALÓN ANTONIO WELCOME. FROM 30 DE MAYO TO 7 DE JUNIO

The Center for Bullfighting Affairs of the Community of Madrid inaugurated, in a massive event, an exhibition that paid tribute to the figure of the master Santiago Martín 'El Viti' (Vitigudino, Salamanca, 1938), the bullfighter who has opened the Door the most times Large of Las Ventas. The event was attended by Santiago Martín 'El Viti' accompanied by his closest relatives, who actively participated in the exhibition, providing unpublished photos of the right-hander from Salamanca. Other great bullfighters, such as Curro Vázquez, José Antonio and Tomás Campuzano, José Pedro Prados "El Fundi", Juan Diego, Diego Urdiales, Ignacio Garibay and Javier Castaño, among others, did not want to miss the tribute either. Also present were the Mayor of Salamanca, Carlos García Carbayo, and the Councilor for Tourism and Culture, Julio López Revuelta. The act was presented by the journalist Roberto Gómez.

The Salamanca Bullfighting Museum gave several pieces for the occasion that, for the first time, could be visited in Madrid, such as the white and gold dress with which 'El Viti' took the alternative in Las Ventas in 1961; a walking cape embroidered in red and flowers, a trophy from the Malaga Fair; a set of swords in embossed leather; a montera, or the poster of the last bullfight in which Diego Puerta, Paco Camino and 'El Viti' fought together. The exhibition was also composed of several bullfighting awards, books and press clippings, various posters of Charity Runs where 'El Viti' was announced and photographs signed by Los Ángeles, Blanco, Botán, Cano, Cuevas, Diego, Enrique, Gonsanhi, Jesús, Martín, Moratalla Barba, Sebastián and Valls.

The Community of Madrid thus remembered one of the great bullfighting figures of the 60s and 70s, the standard bearer of the Castilian school and one of the most elegant right-handers of all time. In Las Ventas, 'El Viti' fought 54 bullfights and cut 40 trophies that served him, among other achievements, to go out on his shoulders fourteen times, to which must be added another two Big Doors as a bullfighter, figures that no other bullfighter has managed to equalize in the history of the Monumental Madrid. In 1997, the Ministry of Culture awarded him the Gold Medal for Merit in Fine Arts.

SALÓN ANTONIO WELCOME. FROM THE 8 TO THE JUNE 16

Humberto Parra was the artist who closed the cultural programming for the San Isidro 2019 fair organized by the Center for Bullfighting Affairs of the Community of Madrid. The artist and former Peruvian bullfighter brought his latest works to the Antonio Bienvenida Hall of the Las Ventas bullring, most of them made with “gouache”, a pictorial technique that requires great skill in drawing.

They highlighted his colorful sketches of bullfighters, bulls, facades of squares and intimate moments of the fight, in addition to a collection of pocket handkerchiefs, made of silk, with different bullfighting prints bearing the signature of Parra. José María Manzanares, Rafael de Paula, Curro Romero, José Tomás, Morante de la Puebla, Diego Urdiales, Alejandro Talavante and Pablo Aguado were some of the right-handers portrayed by the artist in this exhibition that caught the visitor's attention due to their vibrant colors and the force of movement.

Humberto Parra was born in Barranco (Peru) in 1960, although he has been living in Spain since 1983. Novillero - he came to take the alternative in Cajamarca just before retiring - and a student of Fine Arts in Lima, has spent his whole life combining his two greats passions: bulls and painting.

HALL ANTOÑETE. FROM THE 14 TO THE 23 OF MAY

Alfonso Muñoz Martínez is a painter and sculptor from Yecla (Murcia) who has worked as a carver in the furniture industry for more than 14 years, in addition to being a lover of bullfighting. For his part, José Tomás Pérez Indiano is a young Sevillian painter who has already illustrated numerous posters and hand programs of La Maestranza de Sevilla, standing out for his innovative compositions. Both shared a room during San Isidro 2019.

HALL ANTOÑETE. FROM 24 DE MAYO TO 5 DE JUNIO

The Bullfighting Center of the Community of Madrid inaugurated the exhibition 'Una vida de toros', with works by the bullfighting photojournalist Santos Trullo (1938-1984), who worked for the general press (ABC, Up, Town) and specialized publications (El Ruedo, El Toreo, El Trapío) between late 60 and early 80.

The exhibition comprised a selection of published and other unpublished works, and aimed to take a tour of the different facets of a bullfighting photographer from the 70s, the moment of greatest diffusion of bullfighting in the world. The exhibition, organized with the collaboration of the Center for Bullfighting Affairs of the Community of Madrid, consisted of black and white photographs that proposed a journey through the protagonists and landmarks of the moment, in a way that allowed to get closer to the work of the bullfighting photojournalist from a broad form.

Barely 50 years separated us from these images, which we could appreciate both far and near at the same time: many of those portrayed still live, and the children of many of them have already taken over. The exhibition invited to fly over the Spanish society of the time, to which bullfighting was not alien. In this way, there was the trace of social change, the return of women to the ring, the influence of phenomena such as 'uncovering', and bullfights as a growing tourist phenomenon. 'Una vida de toros' intended to vindicate the figure of the photojournalist as a privileged witness of his time and record his work in its most varied aspects, in an exercise in 'contemporary archeology'. In addition, it tried to interest both fans of bullfighting and lovers of photography.

The exhibition was produced by the General Directorate of Fine Arts of the Ministry of Culture and Sports on the occasion of the II International Congress of Bullfighting (2018). 

HALL ANTOÑETE. FROM THE 6 TO THE JUNE 16

José Ángel Ramírez Cuenca is an artist of international projection who, among other merits, has been awarded a scholarship by the Yamagata Foundation in Washington and selected by the painter Antonio López for an extraordinary chair. His bullfighting-themed work oozes personality. He shared the room with Javier Ballester "Montesol", one of the protagonists of the underground comics era of the 70s and 80s in Spain and who this year returned to Las Ventas with a dozen new bullfighting works that were striking for their showiness.

SHOWROOMS OF THE 1 AND 10 TENDERS. DURING ALL SAN ISIDRO

The Bullfighting Center of the Community of Madrid organized for the San Isidro Fair 2019 a curious exhibition that gathered elements of the fight from the nineteenth century to 1920, the year of the death of Joselito "El Gallo", because that date was the one commonly accepted as that of the decline of the old bullfight, not only in the artistic, but also in the change of the clothes of the right-handers.

The collector Alberto Perales temporarily gave his most precious pieces to be exhibited in the showcases located at the bottom of the 1 line. Capotes of ride profusely embroidered, monteras of the time of Cúchares and Frascuelo, chaquetillas with heavy decoration, estoques of the XIX century, a hairnet attributed to Pepe-Hillo or banderillas used in corridas regias were some of the elements that the visitor could admire in the cited showcases.

SHOWCASES OF THE 2 TENDING. DURING ALL SAN ISIDRO

The photographer Alfredo Arévalo reviewed his file in Las Ventas during the last 25 years, rescuing snapshots that are already part of the popular memory of the fans of this square.

SHOWCASES OF THE 6 TENDING. DURING ALL SAN ISIDRO

"The bull: portrait of a life" was the title of the photography exhibition that Carlos Canalo brought to Las Ventas and that revolves around the life of the fighting bull, from his birth in the field to his fight in the plaza.