The Teruel painter Agustín Alegre Monferrer died yesterday in Teruel at the age of 87. Agustín Alegre was one of the most prominent exponents of figurative painting in Aragón. The death occurred due to cancer, which he survived well beyond the life expectations he had been given. All of this, according to his son, also Agustín Alegre, “because of the determination he had to live and continue creating art. Only two weeks ago he said ‘let’s see if this goes away so I can go back to the studio and continue painting'”. His son lamented this Saturday that there are two major projects underway around his work and that the artist will no longer be able to see when they come true. One of them was a traveling anthological exhibition that had started in Madrid and was being curated by Genoveva Casanova. The other was to collect an honorary award for his entire career that the Spanish Association of Painters and Sculptors was going to give him.
As soon as the news of his death became known, the reactions began to arrive. The mayor of Teruel, Emma Buj assured that “without a doubt it is a great loss for the province of Teruel. This nationally recognized painter, who has also carried the name of Teruel beyond our borders, was a reference in figurative painting and also in the cultural life of the city of Teruel. His paintings preside, precisely, in important spaces of the City Council and, therefore, are part of the life of all the people of Teruel.”
The mayor recalled that “has immortalized the Lovers of Teruel many times, He also participated in the 800 years, in that celebration, but in addition, one of his paintings was the gift chosen by the city of Teruel at the wedding of the kings of Spain. In 2014 the city council organized a retrospective exhibition with great success.” And he highlighted that “in addition to his great work as a painter and that reference that he was for many, without a doubt, Agustín Alegre was an exceptional person, with a human quality that filled the space where it was. He transmitted joy and enthusiasm, like a small child already in years, to all of us who were around. He leaves us a great figure of Teruel culture, but he also leaves us an extraordinary person. Fortunately we have been able to share many moments with him and he also leaves us that wonderful legacy that is his painting.”
For his part, Joaquín Juste, president of the Provincial Council of Teruel, conveyed his condolences to the family and thanked “that has carried the name of Teruel throughout the world and that he gave us a great lesson, which is that from Teruel, from an unpopulated province, you can reach the top. We also want to thank him for his generosity, because there are many places where we can find paintings by Agustín Alegre, such as Santa Eulalia or the Agrarian Chamber of Teruel, because in addition to being a great artist and an excellent professional, he was a great person.”
Pedro Olloqui, general director of Culture, highlighted that “Agustín Alegre was the figurative painter par excellence of Teruel, an artist who He contributed to renewing the painting of that current both in Spain and Aragon. His death represents a very important loss for the cultural heritage of the Aragonese. “He printed the brand of modernity that accompanies Teruel, which permeates Aragonese culture.”
Born on August 21, 1936 in Santa Eulalia del Campo, a few days after the outbreak of the civil war, Agustín Alegre studied at the San Carlos Superior School of Fine Arts in Valencia, pensioned by the Provincial Council of Teruel. There he met, and became friends, with artists such as Paco Pérez Monleón, the sculptor José Gonzalvo and Isaac Rodríguez.
Among his most important individual exhibitions, it is worth highlighting the one held in 1959 at the Casa de Cultura in Teruel, the one in the Eureka room in Madrid in 1961, the one at the Círculo de Bellas Artes in Valencia in 1962, which he later brought to the Zaragoza Mercantile Center, or that of 2016 at the Teruel Chamber of Commerce.
He has exhibited in Madrid, Milan, Zaragoza and Valencia, among many other cities. And received, among others, the Moncada Prize, in 1995; the Benimar Gold Medal, in 1957; several City of Albarracín awards; the First Prize for Outdoor Painting of Logroño in 1969; the African Medal at the Exhibition of African Painters in 1974; the third medal at the National Exhibition of Fine Arts in 1976 and the Galerías Preciados Award in 1977, among others. He has a street in his name in Teruel, and received the City’s Gold Medal.
In 2017, the Agustín Alegre Foundation started in his hometown. with the aim of promoting the 800th anniversary of the Legend of the Lovers, one of the favorite themes in the artist’s painting. From then until today, the foundation has worked to create an Agustín Alegre National Museum of Figurative Art, a project that has not come to fruition, to create an Academy of Figurative Art and a network of home care for large dependents and their families, free for users and paid for by the foundation itself.
His painting, according to the ‘Anthological Dictionary of Aragonese Artists’ is based on the continuity of the pictorial tradition prior to Impressionism, that is, the maintenance of figuration as an indispensable premise of the painting, at whose service a solidly learned craft is put, both in the structure of an objective and defined drawing of the shape of people and things, and in the sense of a color. -light that has just defined the visual appearance of reality.”
He has been a man from Teruel who is very committed to Aragon and Aragonese. The funeral chapel opens this Saturday afternoon at the Forner Funeral Home.
