BIO > condense

Raymond Verdaguer’s bio

I was born in a very tiny, historically highly strategic, village in the Pyrenees Mountain Range. At the very dividing border line of France and Spain, of Catalan ethnicity …

I was raised as a “French”,  and I grew up clueless one day will come age the of ‘internet”.There, transportation was seldom,  surroundings, although exceptionally glorious, difficult to access to.

Was” the mountain greener on the other side” that may have trigger my mind?. I travelled  the world and hung my hat in New York expressing myself  in the field of  the arts: drawing, painting,  printmaking …even so I exhibited  my first wood engravings in 1977 in France – unaware it would become my landmark.

“Engravings” or” cuts” are a one-way street, erasers do not apply and as a result they don’t allow any return –  a very simple principle one is confronted with from the very start – mistakes don’t get deleted but are consequently  bases for improvement.   Still “engravings” remains a technic allowing me to express on  life activities or [and] situations,  keeping in mind images must reflect ethical and humanitarian value.

I have been commissioned engravings , since 2003 by the New York Times, since 2002 by Harper’s Magazine. Other commissioned publications include:

USA:  the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Boston Globe, Christian Science Monitor [ …]

FRANCE:  Le Monde, Le Monde Diplomatique, Liberation, Le Magazine Littéraire, Courrier International, International Herald Tribune [ …], CANADA: Walrus, Le Devoir, Écosociété […]. SPAIN: El Mundo, ABC, Letras Libras […]. Over a dozen universities […]

I have been  offering my artistic cooperation to support none profit organizations  [AIDS, malaria, social justice, human rights, education, […]

I have contributed  keeping  ‘engraving’  alive through exhibitions, lectures, workshops, photographies, videos, and editing a blog on engraving since January 2010.

In 2011, I was invited by the Cultural Service of the French Embassy in New York to be the godfather and president of an art competition open to all the schools in the USA & France. A contest involving creating art with the use of recyclable materials [ 4000 entries from K G to high school].

In 2013, I gave a series of my engraved works to the collection of  Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux Arts de Paris , [ the oldest academy of fine arts in France ] My work was exhibited at the Library while I gave a lecture.

interests: Chinese caligraphy – nature – history – geography – craftmanship – antiques – architecture – traveling – skating.

spoken languages : French, English, Spanish

updated March 4, 2012

quotes

♦ Iablis, publisher in Germany:

” Verdaguer motifs show a devastated and devastating world: the dynamics of its as simple as the contrast of the  finesse leaves, his figures in the major American newspapers and art journals are to be found anywhere the image space points out into the field of social conflicts and disasters. The sufferings of humanity are enormous – whether they are curable, nothing is said about it. Looking at the brutality of the acts of those who hold the reins in their  hands mostly invisible, beyond what the pictures show, but present in each of  his features. ” { translated from German }

♦ Susan Gransby, Art Gallery Curator, printmaker & journalist in Canada

“Verdaguer’s linocut newspaper and magazine illustrations deliver small packages with immense impact, letting creativity loose under severe constraints. Intelligently interpreting a writer’s idea with the pressure of a daily deadlines and limits to visual freedom of expression gives the work a dramatic immediacy, even urgency. Thumbnail sketches of the news of the day, they summarize timely, complex issues. The renderings are full of movement and rhythm, their compositions curving to escape their restricted boundaries. These relief prints proudly display one of their traditional strengths as a messenger to the masses.”

 

original linoleum cut > linogravure originale > linóleo grabado original > incisione originale > Copyright © Raymond Verdaguer 2011