As Cicero said in defense of old age: “In fact, no one considers himself so old that he does not think he can live another year.” The Galician artist, who holds the title of the oldest man in Spain and the oldest man in Spain, must have thought the same thing. world’s oldest active painter: Luis Torras from Vigo. Every year, as December 29th approached, he would open the doors of his home with that young spirit to tell FARO, from the Prensa Ibérica group, of which he was the oldest subscriber, about his life and the world of painting.
Conscious and without a walker or oxygen, requiring no assistance other than a hearing aid: “I work as if I will live another hundred years” he was claiming. So up to 111.
However, this year he did not want to do any interviews about the date of extinguishing the candles because “He wasn’t feeling very well.” And to be this Spain’s oldest man gave him more extraordinary popularity. Still she refused to participate.
Recent absence of a significant other, María Jesús InceraHe was touched by the young man who died on June 19, 2023, at the age of 100, just a month before he turned 101. His relatives acknowledged that the death of the woman he married in 1946 destroyed something within him.
And on Sunday the fireproof engine decided to shut down. “He was in the hospital; “We took him away because he wasn’t feeling well and the doctors thought he was in his last moments,” they said. “It had been months since I had painted. He was having more difficulty moving…” They also claimed, at the express request of the artist: Due to his death, no social events will be organized.
The life of the plain and simple figurative artist, who lived with a passion for painting and the passion to take out his brushes every day, slowly faded away the day the Christmas lights in Vigo went out. She decided to immortalize this on one of her canvases. With the big tree in Porta do Sol and on the occasion of its 107th anniversary.
Born in 1912, Luis Torras left a light-filled legacy. After decades of work, His pictorial legacy is immense.Portraits of Jesus or family members such as his wife or son, from still lifes featuring rye bread, pears or sardines (he admitted that he often ate bluefish), to large-format landscapes passing through seascapes of his favorite towns, such as O Berbés de Vigo, A Guarda or Combarro .
“I will have over five hundred paintings, I am not counting, but I have broken most of them because I only keep the paintings that I think can be up to par,” he said in one of his last interviews with this newspaper.
two epidemics
It survived two epidemics, flu and Covid, A civil war that steals the hearing of one ear, and, for many, the boredom caused by adding so many trips around the sun.
He caught the Spanish flu during his childhood while attending art class with Vidales. He picked up paint brushes when he was only seven years old. A hundred years later, the coronavirus had hardly changed their taciturn habits; He had strict schedules like getting up, having breakfast, reading the newspaper, painting…
Art House The place where he taught was the permanent headquarters of his collection in Vigo and was also the venue chosen for the anthology exhibition. The one in 2008 was Luis Torras’ last solo exhibition. He donated more than fifty canvases to his city.
Discretion
Former students of the decorative painting class where he taught and teachers from different disciplines congratulated him on his always remembered 104th birthday. “Having Arts and Crafts students remember me almost fifty years later was one of the most emotional acts of my life,” he admitted. “At least I said goodbye to all my friends and it saved me time,” he smiled. “I leave satisfied not only for myself, but also for my students and the people I share this with.”, explained the figurative painter Emilia Pardo in the workshop of her home on Bazán Street. Her mother died at the age of 104 in her home, without needing to see a doctor. When asked about the secret of living long, he said: “If I knew, I wouldn’t tell you; “I would exploit that.”
And Torras had reached the age where he could laugh at his own death: “I am standing”On anniversaries he would say:
“He left a deeply personal mark on his extensive work by applying pigments directly.”
Neighbor of Luis Torras and visual artist from Vigo Xavier Magalhaes He described his colleague as “a man of character and a great painter”. Upon learning of the artist’s death, he said: “He leaves us with a huge void because of his departure for the stars, but it is a comprehensive work in which pigments are directly applied, leaving a very special and personal imprint on his paintings. The same freshness in his speech allows the viewer to participate in his work without taboos.”
Likewise the painter Elvira Caamano The artist, who is also a professor of Fine Arts and knows the works of Luis Torras from the permanent exhibition at Casa das Artes, assures that he even introduced a retrospective version of his works, which are very difficult to see in exhibitions. “These are very elegant and harmonious paintings, in cold and neutral colors, with good drawing and good composition,” he values. “A great loss for Galician painting.” After hearing the news, artists and anonymous people, including some EMAO professors, mourned his death on social networks.
One of his last works, which he immersed himself in when he was at least 110 years old, featured a carousel with colored stripes on a lime-covered canvas. Luis Torras also did not agree to sell his work. “I will give the paintings I have to the City Council,” he once said.