Collection
Retrato de Mariano Rubio [Portrait of Mariano Rubio]
- 1991
- Oil on canvas
- 128 x 97 cm
- Cat. P_507
- Comissioned from the artist in 1990
Carmen Laffón painted Mariano Rubio in a standing pose, in three-quarter profile. He is shown in a dark suit, against a bold red background dotted with flecks of light which focuses all the intensity of the picture on the sitter's face. That is where the light is concentrated, and the palette of colours is much lighter there. Laffón achieves this in an uncontrived fashion. The sitter's gaze is fixed on a point outside the frame: a light source illuminates the space from the right and bounces off his figure.
Governor of the Banco de España 1984 - 1992
Mariano Rubio held a degree in Economics from the University of Madrid. In his student years he was jailed for his anti-Franco activism and had to flee to Paris, where he began a career at the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). He returned to Spain in 1963 as head of the Economic Policy Office at the Treasury Ministry. During Mariano Navarro Rubio’s term as governor of the Banco de España, he was recruited by Ángel Madroñero as Deputy Director of the Studies Unit, which was reorganised and modernised under their leadership and provided with a full-time staff of specialist economists. From 1970 to 1972 he was Director General for Financial Policy, but he resigned from his post in protest at the military tribunals in Burgos. During the transition to democracy he joined Francisco Fernández Ordóñez's Social Democratic Party.
He rejoined the Banco de España in 1976, where he served as Deputy Governor from 1977 to 1984 under José María López de Letona and José Ramón Álvarez-Rendueles, and then as Governor from 1984 to 1992. In that period the financial system was thoroughly overhauled, the independence of the Banco de España was consolidated (under the 1980 Governing Bodies Act) and the groundwork was laid for Spain to join the Monetary Union (1986) and the European Monetary System (1989). Mariano Rubio played a major role in drawing up the Delors Plan.
His mandate started in 1977, coinciding with the outbreak of a banking crisis that lasted until the 1980s. At that time the Deposit Guarantee Fund and Corporación Bancaria were set up and restructuring policies and systems were set in place. One consequence of this was the concentration of banks due to the takeover of banks in crisis. In 1992 he was affected by the Ibercorp case, which led him to tender his resignation, though he eventually stayed on until the end of his mandate.
Other works by Carmen Laffón