Nestor Basterretxea

Nestor Basterretxea Arzadun (6 May 1924 – 12 July 2014) was a Basque artist, born in Bermeo, Biscay. In the 1950's and 60's, he spearheaded along with other artists such as Jorge Oteiza, Remigio Mendiburu, or Eduardo Chillida, an avant-guard artistic movement concerned with the crisis of Basque identity, and formally a special focus on large volumes and the concept of emptiness.

Career

In the 1952 he was commissioned along with other Basque artists the reconstruction of the Franciscan Sanctuary of Arantzazu. He was assigned the works to design the paintings covering the crypt. After an year-long period and halfway to completion, the paintings were held to be controversial by Church officials and works were suspended sine die. Despite their completion in 1984, the paintings were publicly unveiled and put on show only in September 2009, after an agreement was finally reached with the veteran artist. The Arantzazu reconstruction project paved the way to the establishment of the influential artistic group Gaur ('today') in the 1960's.

In 1968, he came back onto the artistic spotlight with the documentary Ama Lur ('mother earth'), co-directed with Fernando Larruquert. Despite the documentary's countless difficulties with Franco's regime's censorship, it ultimately made it through to the San Sebastián International Film Festival, to public and critical acclaim.

In 1973, he presented in Bilbao's Museo de Bellas Artes (Bilbao Fine Arts Museum) his work Serie Cosmogonica Vasca (Basque Cosmogonic Series), which included some 19 works, made in wood, of examples of Basque Mythology. In 2008, Nestor donated this series to the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum.

In the 1980's Basterretxea became Culture Councillor for the Basque Government for two years. Towards the end of that decade, he created two of his best known works: La Paloma de Paz (Peace Dove), initially installed in la Zurriola, Donostia (San Sebastian) and later on moved to a roundabout outside the Anoeta Stadium of the same city; and in 1989, the Monument to the Basque Shepherd, installed in Reno, Atlanta.

When Nestor Basterretxea entered his seventh decade of life, he started to reflect the Basque conflict in his work. In 1982, he created the seven branched tree that heads the Basque Parliament.

Basterretxea also took part in film making, with short films such as Operación H (1963), Pelotari (1964), and Alquézar, retablo de pasión (1965), and the full feature film Ama Lur - Tierra Madre (1966), as well as several documentaries.

Nestor Basterretxea died in his home in Hondarribia in the morning of 12 July 2014, at the age of 90.