THE EXHIBITION “PAINTED MUSIC” IN THE INSTITUTO CERVANTES IN VIENNA HAS 1500 VISITORS

  • Major success for the first exhibition outside Spain of the artist known as “The Painter of Music” since his death in 1978, open to the public since the 10th November and much appreciated by Austrian society.
  • Juan Manuel Bonet, recently appointed Director of the Instituto Cervantes and a connoisseur of Ochoa’s work, claimed that “Ochoa has certainly secured his place in the history of book publishing thanks to his illustrations”, just as “there is an Ochoa type of woman”.

The Instituto Cervantes in Vienna has finally closed the doors of the exhibition “Painted Music”, conceived and organized by the Enrique Ochoa Foundation, having received 1535 visitors since its opening on10th November last. An exhibition that has served to spread the knowledge of the work of the painter, poet and humanist Enrique Ochoa (1891 - 1978), arranged to coincide with the 125th anniversary of the artist’s birth.

The display formed by a total of 35 works, much appreciated by Austrian society, was inaugurated by (amongst others) Benita Ferrero-Waldner - who was European Commissioner and Foreign Secretary of the Austrian Republic – and the Director of the Spanish Orchestra in Vienna Guillermo García Calvo, with institutional collaboration by the Instituto Cervantes itself (with Carlos Ortega as its Director in Vienna), the Embassy of Spain (headed by the Ambassador Alberto Carnero), the Austrian Ministry of Culture, and support from Kaiserwetter, MasMóvil and the Cremades & Calvo-Sotelo Foundation.

It is worthy of note that the recently-appointed Director of the Instituto Cervantes, Juan Manuel Bonet, was one of the principal students of Enrique Ochoa’s work. In the catalogue of the retrospective exhibition of Ochoa’s work in the Espacio para el Arte Caja Madrid held in 2009, Bonet stated that “the Complete Works of Ruben Darío”, illustrated by Enrique Ochoa, contained no less than 22 volumes. If he had created nothing more than this major work, Ochoa would already have guaranteed himself a place in the history of book publishing” just as he asserted that “there is an Ochoa type of woman”.

At the closing ceremony in Vienna, the President of the Enrique Ochoa Foundation, José Estévez, “praised this exhibition as a fine example of public-private collaboration with the Instituto Cervantes to promote the richness of Spanish art across the world”. The axis of this exhibition was 31 drawings in pen and ink dedicated to Frederic Chopin.

 

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