The portrait of Winner of the Cervantes de las Letras 2023 the writer Luis Mateo Díez, Already hangs from the walls of the BNE as part of one of its most particular collections: that of the portraits of all the winners with this award.
The writer has assured that he “Feel at home“By accessing his portrait, the work of Jorge Tenma, to the BNE. The Miguel de Cervantes Castilian Language Literature Award, granted annually by the Ministry of Culture since 1976, is the most prestigious prize of the letters in the Castilian language.
In an act in which the director of the BNE, Óscar Arroyo; The general director of the book, comic and reading, Mª José Gálvez, and Luis Mateo Díez himself, accompanied by some members of her family and friends, the picture has been uncovered in the emblematic Italian hall of the BNE, where any visitor can already contemplate it.
The director of the BNE, Óscar Arroyo, stressed that this appointment closes the ‘Matthew Year’, initiated in November 2023 with the announcement of the Cervantes Award to the Leon writer, who has confessed that being “hung” in a place “as important and of a cultural and symbolic relief as powerful as the National Library of Spain is still a commitment to be strengthened by increasing discretion and humility”
“Here I am at home,” said Díez. The writer has indicated that the chosen artist is a “great friend and a great painter“And although he is not a portraitist, he has” a recognized pictorial world “and received the commission with a” enormous illusion. “The painting, as he explained, is titled ‘Luis Mateo plotting’ and is the result of a very meticulous process and perched hours.
“Plot is something inner and obsessive, in the idea that the painter had, he looks at the look, it is my work. I write in this provision a bit reasonsthat gives rise to imaginary worlds that have very strong touches of unreality, reverie or ghostly, and drifts, some surrealist lines, some expressionist lines, all that is set when making a physical representation of how you are, “he said.
For his part, Jorge Tenma has thanked Luis Mateo Díez for his “generosity” and his patience when posing for “endless hours until exhaustion.” “I took Luis Mateo’s hall for weeks; he not only gave it to me kindly but also consented to pose many days for endless hours until, I attest to this, exhaustion. His patience is only comparable to his generosity,” said the artist.
“The best thing about the painting is what is not seen, in a double meaning: On the one hand the portrait aims. But on the other hand, the pleasure of the conversations that took place during that voluntary captivity in which we quote, which is the greatest gift that I take, ”
Cervantes Awards portraits collection
The Cervantes Award Collection of the National Library of Spain turns 25. As the institution’s director, Óscar Arroyo, recalled, is a “beautiful tradition” for which the National Library of Spain receives a portrait of the award -winning with the Cervantes Award, held by an artist of his choice.
The works are shown in different study and reading rooms of the historic headquarters of the Paseo de Recoletos, as a memory and tribute to the winners. In March 2023, a collection was presented within the collection – the collection of portraits of women awarded with the Cervantes Award, which remain on permanent exhibition in the Italian BNE Hall.