Elías Garralda

Elías Garralda Alzugaray (Lesaka February 16, 1926 - Olot March 6, 2012), Navarro landscape painter. He studied at the School of Arts and Crafts in Pamplona and later moved to Olot, where he studied at the School of Fine Arts. He made his first exhibition in Barcelona at the age of 22 and became a prominent member of the olotine landscape school. His specialty was the landscapes of the Picos de Europa, Olot and Navarra. It exhibited by diverse galleries of all Spain: Barcelona, ??Madrid, Bilbao. His technique consisted of painting elaborately, of natural2

The painter's childhood passed by the river Bidasoa, to the shade of the Rock of Aya. The landscape world and the high mountains would reveal themselves very early in his eyes. He attended primary school in Pamplona. The outbreak of the civil war of 1936 reverberated in his family, moving to Bayonne. Later, they would reside in Biarritz, where their father, D. Demetrio exerted of teacher of physical education. His enthusiasm for art was accentuated at the age of 14 in front of the landscape theme of the Gulf of Gascony and Lake Chiberta. His hobby grew to such an extent that his father decided to enroll him in the Academy of the prestigious French professor René Barnadin (poet, writer, painter, well informed of modern aesthetic currents and concerned with cultivating the retention of his pupils).

After time, Demetrio decided to return and request re-entry into the Magisterium. Elías, enrolled in the School of Arts and Crafts in Pamplona where he suffered a disappointment. For there they continued using the expired pedagogical methods; Copies of sheets and bust of plaster. Nevertheless, Elías trained in drawing whose dominion he considered funamdental in art. At the same time he received advice from a great Pamplona painter, Basiano.

The reentry of D. Demetrio Garralda in the National Magisterium was approved; More had to suffer "frozoso transfer" to Olot, capital of the Garrotxa, region of the province of Girona. This was providential for Elías Garralda. Olot was considered as the "Barbizón Catalana". In its frame was anticpó, in Spain, the "impressionism". The transfer of the Garralda took place in 1942. It enjoyed the town of great prosperity; To its textile industry and slaughterer was united to its traditional culture of the imagery; The "saints of Olot" were booming. The artistic vocation of Elías Garralda strengthened the contact with the cultural institutions of Olot. And he reunited with the beloved Pyrenees.

He enrolled at the School of Arts and Crafts at the age of 16, an entity that continued to "l'Escola de dibuix (1783)" and continued from the "Escola Superior del Paisatge (1934)" created by the first Generalitat de Catalunya, prize To the olotina dedication of paisajísmo. The celebrated School of Paisatge was developed finished the war under the name of School of Arts and Crafts. But Garralda "did" painting next to the great masters; Soler Jorba, Gussinyé, Olivet Legares, Barnadas, Marsillach ... He never lacked companion advice. When he could acquire a bicycle, he pedaled sporty to the skirt of the Pyrenees, one of his dreams.