>>See gallery with samples of Solon's engravings

Fundación Solón opens a new exhibition on the 10th November “Engravings and Castings” by Walter Solón Romero to mark the artist’s birthday as well as 11 years of the Fundación’s existence.

Every year, the Fundación marks Solón’s birthday (8 November 1923) with an exhibition of a small portion of his extensive work. On this occasion, it will exhibit more than 130 engravings made from 1947 up until the death of the painter.

An engraving is a form of artistic work which uses a series of manual techniques on a hard surface – some based on printing from an elevated part of a plate, others based on holes and markings in the plate and others based on chemical methods. 

Solon’s works include works on wood, metal, stone; engravings without ink, engravings in colour based on several plates, as well as prints based on a technique Solón developed using a resin (called “engraved cement”) that allowed him to print thousands of copies without damaging the plate.

The exhibition of Solon’s engravings will not only include the prints and reproductions, but also the plates or castings that produced them. The exhibition will be unique in this respect as engravers rarely show the plates as they are seen as the sources of their artistic secrets.
 
Jewels of the exhibition

The two art-forms that Walter Solon most preferred were murals and engravings because both allowed him to spread messages widely, in comparison to paintings which have more of an individual impact.  As a result, Solón could be known not just as “a muralist maestro” but also an “engraving maestro.”

The most important engravings of Solón Romero which will be exhibited from the 10th November belong to a collection “People to the Wind”, made with his “engraved cement” technique. This work was a result of experience acquired on a journey to Asia.

Other works will include “Variations on a blood theme” created after the Tolata massacre in 1975 and a xylograph of 1947, the oldest work of the exhibition. 

In addition, from the 10th of November, Solon’s three workshops will be opened to the public – textiles, engravings, and woodwork. These workshops will be an important part of the “museum house” which Fundación Solón are building to relate the history of social movements through art.