Born in Arrecife in 1919 César Manrique is widely regarded as the man who helped to ensure the relatively restrained evolution of tourism on Lanzarote. Returning home from his studies abroad in 1968 just as package holidays to Spain started to take off. But there are many earlier chapters in the Manrique story – such as his position at the forefront of the Spanish surrealist movement and his adventures in New York with the likes of Andy Warhol.
Hail César
Like the majority of Lanzaroteños Cesar Manrique was born in the island capital of Arrecife. Where he grew up with his twin brother, two sisters and another brother in the Puerto Naos harbour area which is close to lagoon at El Charco in the heart of the city and in close proximity to Lanzarote´s Museum of International and Contemporary Art, which Manrique would later found.
His parents were both from a professional, middle class background – as his mother was a notary (a public official dealing in legal documentation, often for example in relation to property transactions), whilst his father is described variously as a business man or business agent.
Certainly, Manrique senior was sufficiently affluent to be able to afford to build a summer house for the family at Caleta de Famara – the village that´s adjacent to the beautiful beach of the same name on Lanzarote´s wilder and visually striking North West coastline. Which is where the young Manrique is said to have first developed his intense love of nature and the islands beauty – whilst playing amongst the sand dunes, pools and waves.
According to Manrique:”When I was young we used to summer in Famara, a fishing village on the west coast of Lanzarote. The natural surroundings there made a strong impression on me especially the magnificent Famara cliffs and I spent many an hour totally captivated by their reflection in the puddles left behind by the tide.”
Manrique displayed a similar absorption for art from a young age, talking admiringly of the works of Picasso and Matisse that he would see in magazines his father bought home for him from his business trips abroad.
This seemingly idyllic upbringing was bought to an end in 1936 though – as Spain became convulsed by Civil War. In which Manrique fought on the side of General Franco – who launched his uprising against the Republic from the Canary Islands.
Moving to Madrid
After the war, Manrique´s father didn´t overly approve of César´s desire to become an artist – and instead attempted to push his son towards a career in engineering. Which resulted in Manrique enrolling at La Laguna University in Tenerife.
But his attempts to conform with his father’s wishes were short lived. And by 1942 Manrique was staging his fist solo exhibition – before taking part in a collective showcase featuring the works of young Canarian artists at the National Gallery of Modern Art in Madrid in 1945. Which provided a lanuchpad for a scholarship at the Academy of Belles Artes de San Fernando in Spain´s bustling capital.
Over the following years Manrique´s artistic style became more cosmopolitan thanks to the influences around him – evolving slowly into a style of non-figurative art – or what was soon to be termed surrealism – that was at the cutting edge of expression in early 1950´s Spain – which was still after all under the rule of General Franco.
Although Lanzarote´s influence was still there in his work: “What I take from the scenery of my home is not its architecture but its dramatic feeling, its essence which is, to my way of thinking, what really matters.”
By this stage Manrique was emerging as an artist of some renown, as surrealism started to take the art world by storm. Staging his own exhibitions in Madrid galleries and being invited to participate in the prestigious Venice Biennal in 1955. Whilst also winning important commissions such as the creation of murals at Madrid’s Barajas Airport. A project which started to foster an interaction with architecture that would become more prominent later in his career – as he developed Lanzarote´s unique cultural and tourist attractions.
Along with a group of like minded arists Manrique now found himself at the head of a new artistic movement – and began to catch the eye of some of the art world’s most prominent patrons. Such as Nelson Rockefeller – who had started to collect Manrique´s work and who invited him to New York in 1964.
New York, New York
Manrique´s move to New York inevitably exposed the artist to a whole range of influences that were – at the time – somewhat circumscribed in Franco’s Spain. As he forged friendships with the likes of Andy Warhol and John Bernard Myers whilst enjoying the work of cutting edge creatives such as Pollock, Rothko and Raussemberg. Enabling Manrique to develop new techniques and means of expression.
But at the same time he was also felt that city life was artificial and lacking in the sort of integrity and spirituality which he had so enjoyed in Lanzarote. And from which he felt he drew his real creative strength. Resulting in the decision to return to the island of his birth in 1968 – at a time when Lanzarote was first coming to terms with the tourist industry. A vital crossroads for its development in which he would soon be playing a leading role.
