A painter in Mojácar, 1930

Ricardo Bernardo was attracted to painting since childhood, and in 1910 the Santander County Council awarded him a grant to study at Bellas Artes in Madrid. In 1919, when he had an exhibition in Santander, the public acclaimed him as “ el Pereda del lienzo”, ( an equivalent might be “the Thomas Hardy of painting”). He travelled to Paris in 1920 and then in 1924 exhibited in Havana and Cienfuegos. On his return in 1925 his style of painting began to change, the traditional style which he had used until then gave way to a much more modern and avant-garde style, more in keeping with the new ¨modernism¨. From that point onwards we can talk about a painter who painted in the style which I consider, in a broad sense, to be of the generation of `27. From then on his style of painting had things in common with that of Vázquez Diaz and with that of his friends Arteta and Sunyer.

In May 1930 he moved to Mojácar to paint. His interest had been motivated by reading the book La España Incógnita (Unknown Spain), by the German Kurt Hielscher, in which can be seen two photographs which closely resemble the paintings which he painted during his stay. He refered to this book when, on arrival, he wrote to his friend Ana LLosa. In this letter dated 4th May 1930 we read: I was able, after a few inquiries, to find Mojácar, which the good German who wrote the book, called ¨Mochagar¨, to the annoyance of us all. (...) I arrived at this steep hill on which clings all the cubist enchantment of this noble town which as qualification for nobility claims to be “the key and protector of the kingdom of Granada.

In order to reach Mojácar he travelled by train to Lorca, by bus to Turre and lastly by donkey to the Almerían village. From that visit came some beautiful compositions, one of which is the painting that can be found in the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum, entitled Mojácar. Almeria. From there he also wrote, in a letter headed, “Almería the Cinderella, month of May 1930, second dictatorship, Mojácar”:

Friend Anita: I have just returned from a walk down towards the sea, this Mediterranean so saturated in history that it now no longer wants to know about anything and dozes constantly. The track is African: prickly pears, carobs, the baroque tortured shapes of fig trees, soft hills in the afternoon light.In the shadows -like oases- are some orchards maintained by a little water wheel.Since October not a drop of rain has fallen ( the same as there ) and because of this only the women are left here, all the men have had to emigrate, poor Spain! [...]

There are still some old ladies here who never leave their faces uncovered and all of them in general wear shawls with which to cover their heads and faces; this will tell you how strongly Arab customs still persist here. And as concerns architecture, this place has a more eastern character than Tetuán. Tetuán is picturesque and this place is extremely sober; at times parts of the village look Bedouin.

I am working intensely. I think one of the landscapes might shock, it has something of a game of dice about it and since the terrain is uneven the perspective is deliciously crazy.

During the civil war he was the delegate for fine arts in his province, until Santander was conquered by Francoist troops and he was forced to leave for France , where he lived in exile with his mother and his only son, Pedro. After spending time in Agen and other places in France, discouraged by his delicate health, troubled more and more by an old heart condition, he died in Marseilles in November 1940, thus cutting short the career of a promising painter.

Esther López Sobrado