Pancho Ortuño
Granada 1950

Pancho Ortuño trained at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando in Madrid (1968), where he took classes from Antonio López and then, in 1970, met Fernando Zóbel, painter and founder of the Museum of Abstract Art in Cuenca. In 1972 he was awarded a grant by the latter museum and went to work there for a year as supervisor of the art library. From 1976 onwards he combined his career as an artist with work as an art and music critic in specialist journals and with writings about art, thinking and literature. He also translated texts on art. In 1977 he obtained a creative art grant from the Juan March Foundation.

In his early days he was influenced by American abstract expressionism and the style of the Cuenca School. He worked with large canvases, on which he poured paint so that it slowly covered the entire canvas, allowing it to flow freely. From the late 1970s onwards, he turned towards figurative art and began to paint portraits and landscapes in Trujillo, the town where he had set up home with his wife and a place whose aesthetic qualities he greatly admired.

His first solo exhibition took place in 1975, via art dealer Enrique Gómez Acebo at the Egam Gallery. In 1974 he took part in the International Engraving Biennial in Segovia, but it was his contacts with the Juana Mordó Gallery that really launched his career. After his first solo exhibition there in 1977, Ortuño had the opportunity to get a close look at the work of artists such as Antonio Saura, Manuel Millares, Luis Feito, Antoni Tàpies, Joan Miró and Josep Guinovart. In 1979 his works featured in a group exhibition organised by art critics Juan Manuel Bonet, Quico Rivas and Ángel González under the title '1980. Diez jóvenes pintores' [1980. Ten Young Painters'], which also included José Manuel Broto, Gerardo Delgado, Carlos Alcolea, Manolo Quejido and others. In 1980 he took part in another high-profile exhibition: 'Madrid D. F., aspectos de la nueva escena plástica madrileña' ['Madrid D.F.: Aspects of the New Visual Art Scene in Madrid']. On the death of Juana Mordó in 1984, Ortuño returned to Cuenca, where he taught at the university for three years and directed the Trujillo Studio School for eight. He later decided to set up a cultural heritage restoration and rehabilitation business and paint only for his own enjoyment.

Frederic Montornés