Padrón Acosta's Lost Canarian Art History Published

A new book, Los imagineros canarios (The Canarian Image Makers), will be launched this Friday at 7:00 PM. The launch takes place at the Institute of Hispanic Studies of the Canary Islands (IEHC), located at 18 Quintana Street in Puerto de la Cruz. This book is the seventh volume in the Sebastián Padrón Acosta Library (BSPA) series, which aims to bring back the full collection of works by the Tenerife writer and scholar, Sebastián Padrón Acosta (1900-1953).

The new book brings to light a work that won an award from the Royal Economic Society of Friends of the Country of Tenerife in 1943 but was never actually published. It also features essays by Padrón Acosta himself, exploring the lives and work of important Canarian visual artists like José Rodríguez de la Oliva, José Luján Pérez, Miguel Arroyo Villalba, and Fernando Estévez del Sacramento.

Sebastián Padrón Acosta was not only a supporter of young Tenerife artists after the Civil War (especially through the Tenerife Fine Arts Circle) but also one of the first critics and historians of art on the islands. Los imagineros canarios is important for two reasons: it shares knowledge widely and offers deep research. Before this work, no comprehensive study like it existed, nor had the main island artists been explored in such detail. Padrón was the first to write dedicated studies (monographs) on famous image makers like Fernando Estévez and Rodríguez de la Oliva. These writings are still considered key resources for understanding these artists today.

José Miguel Perera, who coordinates the BSPA project and oversees the editions and introductions, highlights Padrón Acosta's significance. He states that Padrón Acosta is "one of the most important" researchers in Canarian studies from the 1940s, a time when Padrón Acosta was in his prime.

The Sebastián Padrón Acosta Library project started in 2017. It's a joint effort between Mercurio Editorial and the Institute of Hispanic Studies of the Canary Islands (IEHC). José Miguel Perera, a poet, literary critic, and researcher who wrote his PhD on Padrón Acosta, leads the project. So far, the series has published Canarian Legends, Creative Prose I, Creative Prose II, Canarian Poetesses (18th, 19th, and 20th Centuries), Historical Miscellany, and Artistic Miscellany. Now, Los imagineros canarios joins this collection. José Miguel Perera and Margarita Rodríguez Espinosa, representing the IEHC, will present the book.