A retrospective exhibition shows the artist’s work
At the initiative of the painter Pedro Cano, back in October 2021, who offered Fidel Molina, son of the late painter Luis Molina (Blanca, 1933-2021), the holding of an anthological exhibition of his father, the Blanca City Council, the Fundación Pedro Cano and the Permanent Headquarters of the University of Murcia in Blanca have made possible the inauguration of a major retrospective exhibition on the figure of the painter and cartoonist from Blanca, which took place this Saturday on the third floor of the Foundation.
A hundred people wanted to join the well-deserved tribute that the municipality of Blanca paid to one of its most illustrious neighbors. After thanking the mayor, Pedro Luis Molina, the painter Pedro Cano, for making this exhibition available to the people, the director of the Museum, María del Carmen Sánchez-Rojas, took the floor. “Luis Molina, one of Blanca’s most complete painters, has been a surprise for me, because in addition to working with ease with brushes, he dominated the world of comics in the 60s,” she said.
But the warmest ovation went to the painter’s son, Fidel Molina, also a painter like his father and curator of the exhibition that can be visited until November 27. “I feel like family surrounded by my father’s friends in an emotional act and it fills me with pride to be the curator of the exhibition,” he said.
Luis Molina’s son highlighted as his father’s main quality “the ability to interpret reality, in addition to his handling with the brush.” After thanking Pedro Cano for his generosity, he argued that “this is a unique opportunity to contemplate my father’s paintings.”
The event was closed by the painter Pedro Cano, who praised the figure of Luis Molina, “because those kinds of paintings that appeared decades ago by Luis meant a lot to the people and to me, since his work was done from a very special perspective.” There were two paintings that powerfully called the attention of the artist from Blanca, one about Caravaca and another about a swamp, “very beautiful”, he acknowledged.
The collection is made up of 49 paintings, many of them from collectors, to whom Fidel Molina showed his gratitude, and others brought from his home in Madrid. Portraits, landscapes, still lifes, costumbrista scenes, flowers, religious and bullfighting themes stand out.
Luis Molina studied Fine Arts and Crafts in Madrid, where he lived for many years, and was also a teacher. Among his awards, the First Prize for bullfighting painting in Alicante (1984) or the one received in Los Narejos in 1965 stand out.
A few months before his death, in 2021, the E-Culture and Leisure association of Blanca, in collaboration with the City Council, organized the 1st contest “A Valley of Comics. Luis Molina”, which closed with 49 works received from different parts of the world.
Among the large audience that came to the inauguration, almost all the councilors of the corporation appear; the director of the Permanent Headquarters, José Molina; the official chronicler, Ángel Ríos, the graduate in Fine Arts, Juan Antonio Fernández or the former mayor Rafael Laorden.
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