The great Spanish abstract painter Pascual Tarazona (1940 – 2022) showed at the UJ Art Gallery on more than one occasion. Tarazona lived and worked in SA for more than 40 years, first as a dress designer and later an artist. He was a prolific artist and left a large body of paintings, drawings and photomontage prints behind. These have all been collated by Prof Elfriede Dreyer (Prof Emeritus UNISA). We approached Tarazona’s benefactors and patrons Charles and Lillian Loys-Ellis for guidance on what to do with all this work. Tarazona had no formal education and although he studied for 2 years at WITS for non-degree purposes under Karel Nel, he always longed to have the chance to study art formally. When he left for Spain 5 years ago, he donated many art materials, books and drawings to students to make use of. The benefactors agreed to an exhibition at UJ Art Gallery to show and sell the work with all proceeds going to a Visual Art Bursary Trust specifically for first year students, given out in Tarazona’s name. We are hoping to raise as much as R250 000 from the exhibition of his work. Aspire Auctioneers have kindly agreed to administer the auction for us. We have selected around 60 of the most prominent works for the auction. The exhibition will show many more paintings and drawings: many of which are unframed works on paper. These works will not be auctioned but will be sold on an offer basis. ALL proceeds will go the Pascual Tarazona Art Bursary Trust fund. This show is a fitting tribute to a prolific artist from Spain who made South Africa his home.
