Ginés Parra

Biography

Ginés Parra (Jose Antonio Ramon Parra Menchón) is born in Zurgena (Almeria) the January 24th 1896, In 1901 its family emigrates in Algérie where it passes his childhood and its adolescence, his/her father working as minor. It then starts to draw and model sculptures. After to have worked itself very young person in the mines of Tlemcen, it leaves in 1910 in Argentine, where it is made mason, with his Ginès brother who dies there and it adopts the first name then. It goes then to Los Angeles, works in the copper mines of the Arizona, and in 1917 receives with New York in 1917 its first artistic formation in “Student´s League”, while it works during the night in the subway.

In 1920 Ginés Parra passes by Zurgena, comes to Paris and settles initially with Aubervilliers, exerting day and night the most modest tasks, guard of store until in 1921 for the Parisian Company of the Sawdusts or, thereafter, washing the cars in a garage, to survive and continue to paint. He attends the École of the Art schools, where its professors are Lucien Simon and Louis Roger, alive in a small studio of Montparnasse. Remaining street of Texel, it exposes as of 1922 to the Salon of autumn then in other living rooms, in particular the Salon of Independent the. In 1927 it binds with the sculptor Julio Gonzalez and Picasso. Living then, street Vercingétorix, in a certain ease it acquires a drawing of Degas, a watercolour of Picasso and a table of Modigliani, which it will be obliged, under more difficult conditions, to sell twenty years later.

The civil war surprises Parra whereas it is of passage to Madrid and it engages in the republican army. Having perhaps taken part in the battle of Èbre, captive fact in 1938, it manages to regain Paris. It exposes then with the painters of the Spanish school of Paris, Picasso, which acquire several of its works, Dominguez, Bores, Clavé, Pelayo, in particular in 1946 with Prague and in 1947 with Brussels. In 1949 it makes known Alba-the-Roman, in Ardèche, where it restores an old house, with his/her friend the Chilean painter Eudaldo which settles there and there invites Jean Moal, while it moves itself further a few kilometers with Saint-Thomé.

Ginés Parra turns over during the Années 1950 to South America, carrying out exposures to Buenos Aires (1950 and 1954), Sao Paulo in March 1950, Montevideo, Lima (June 1950, the catalog containing a poem of Rafael Alberti on its painting, and 1953), Mexico City and Havana (1952), with the Guatemala (February 1953). In 1952 a work of Parra is reproduced in the review Sun (n° 7-8), directed with Algiers by the poet Jean Sénac.

Ginés Parra returns to Paris in 1959, exposes with Picasso, which helps it in a friendly way and materially whereas it is reached by cancer. He dies the April 19th 1960 and is buried with Saint-Thomé. The same year the Living room of Independent organizes a retrospective of its work, another is presented to Madrid in 1974.

Works of Parra are preserved in the museums of Almeria, Boston ( Léda and the swan ), Brno, Havana, Prague, Sao Paulo, Valladolid.

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