Alejandro Marcos 
Introduction
Curriculum vitae
Alejandro Marcos
Born in Salamanca (Spain) in 1937
Lives in Argentina from 1949 to 1963
Moves to Paris in 1963.
Chat
Statements
About Alejandro Marcos
Marcos was born in Salamanca in 1937. At the age of 12 he emigrates to Argentina with his family who, as « reclamados », is authorized to leave Franco’s Spain.
He is put in a preparatory boarding school for the seminary. He stays two years in Patagonia and discovers the Argentinian Pampa landscapes. The painter of religious scenes Echegarai initiates him to the changing shimmer of colours, to lettering and various calligraphies. He joins in the production of theatre sets for the school’s plays.
He has found his vocation. He will not enter the seminary and returns to Bahia Blanca, six hundred miles south of Buenos Aires, where his family, especially his cousin, stays. Both of them attend evening classes, he wants to improve his drawing.
In 1960, he settles in Buenos Aires and works in Juan Carlos Castagnino’s studio, a former disciple of André Lhôte at the Grande Chaumière in Paris.
His second major encounter takes place in 1961 with the painter and engraver José Antonio Berni who will share with Giacometti the Grand Prize of the Venice Biennial the following year. Berni teaches Marcos engraving and introduces him to another approach to painting, in particular the basics of collage and the inlaying of disparate objects.
In 1963, he comes to Paris. He does odd jobs to survive, decorates Cérès Franco’s residence, then Berni’s new studio. A group of Argentinian artists meets there regularly, among others, Antonio Segui, Jack Vanarsky, Lea Lublin, Cristina Martinez...
Marcos holds his first exhibition in 1964 in Cérès Franco’s apartment. Until 1980, his works fiercely censure society in a style between pop art and narrative figuration valued by Gérald Gassiot-Talabot. Androgynous characters are set up in scenes condemning torture in Latin America or the atrocities of the Viet Nam war.
In 1981, he feels the need to revert to models and more inwardness. During three years he drops acrylic for oil painting. Landscapes appear as well as a whole collection of beasts. This is also when he first accepts portrait commissions.
He refuses to date his canvases since, as he puts it, « a painting is (the outcome of) a whole life, not (that of) an instant. »
The Majas follow. Woman’s eternal image. The two-faced one, the one who knows no constraint, like Almodovar’s icons, part ballerina and part torero. Marcos’ women undress themselves, but in the field lies this puzzling aven. The threat is ever present. Marcos will say that he is not keen on self-portraits. He is quite satisfied with the small monkey peering at the Maja.v
Besides his career as a painter, Marcos loves books. « At home there wasn’t a single one ». He plays an active part in the publication of many illustrated works. Currently he wants to work on « The Life and Death of Alejandro Marcos ». He feels in agreement with the culture he suckled from birth. This marks the come back of Spain with all its power and its grace.
October 8, 2003
Dominique Polad-Hardouin