Paul Quintanilla - The Village Common of RI

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Village Voices is the showcase of creativity by the members and volunteers of The Village Common of Rhode Island. We welcome submissions in all media: 2- and 3-dimensional art, creative writing, transformative ideas, crafting, and art collections. As important is the personal stories that accompany each submission.

See the guidelines for submission.

Paul Quintanilla

Paul Quintanilla: Ellen and I both originated in a subway culture, Greenwich Village in New York City. Neither of us learned how to drive while growing up there. In fact, I have never owned a car. So, when we chose to settle in Providence, decidedly a car culture, we happily learned about Providence Village’s drive service, which for a modest monthly sum would help us arrive for needed medical appointments and the like. And for that we are both grateful.

Ellen and I became librarians, working for many years in the San Francisco Public Library while living in Oakland, California. My father’s artwork followed me there. Upon retiring, neither of us wanted to live in New York, even if we could have afforded it. We chose Providence as an ideal location between Boston and New York. So here we are: Ellen and I and the paintings.

The artwork of Luis Quintanilla was produced in New York In the forties and fifties, taken out to California, and are now here in Providence. Most of the artwork in my possession, about 80 paintings and hundreds of drawings and water colors and pastels, are stored on the third floor of our house. Most of them appear on this web site www.lqart.org. A book http://www.sussex-academic.com/sa/titles/art_history/quintanilla.htm accompanies the site if anyone is interested in the extraordinary life of this artist, Luis Quintanilla, my father.

My Father, The Artist: Luis Quintanilla was born 1893 in Spain. At the age of 18 he ran off to Paris, to Montmartre. Under the influence of his fellow countryman, Juan Gris, he started out as a Cubist. Developing a style of his own, he studied painting al fresco in Florence and, returning to Spain, became a prominent artist. And though pretty much apolitical he became mixed up in Spanish politics, becoming friends with the future leaders of the Spanish Republic. Hosting the revolutionary committee of the October, 1934, revolt in his studio, he was arrested and sent to prison. As has happened when other artists have found themselves in jail, the world’s intellectual community came to his aid. Ernest Hemingway and John Dos Passos circulated the petitions in the United States, Andre Malraux in France, and Lady Margo Asquith, wife of the former British Prime Minister, in England. The petitions didn’t obtain his release but he was allowed, instead, to draw his fellow prisoners. When civil war broke out in Spain, he helped save Madrid for the government and led troops against the fascists. In 1937 he did a series of drawings of the war that were shown in New York’s Museum of Modern Art with a catalog by Hemingway. Today they are on loan to the Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid. When General Franco’s forces won the war, my father had to go into an exile that lasted 37 years. He died in Madrid in 1978 at the age of 85.

Editor’s note. When Paul offered me his father’s life story and artwork for Village Voices, he declined to select representative artwork saying, “More than 80 paintings and 100’s of drawings, pastels, and water colors are in storage here in Providence. I balk at singling out one or two paintings since they are all unique and none would be representative.” The selections are mine. I urge you to visit Paul’s excellent website devoted to his father and his father’s artwork.