Maxam Collection. Dallas and Marshall (Texas
28.07.2015
Latino Cultural Center of Dallas, Texas (USA) from the 23rd to the 30th of June. The Michelson Museum of Art in Marshall, Texas (USA) from the 9th of July to the 4th of September.
Latino Cultural Center, Dallas
El proyecto, 2002. Oil on canvas. 130 x 97 cm
A selection of 39 artworks of a collection created to illustrate MAXAM’scalendars, a channel through which to promote the company’s products (civil explosives and sports and hunting shotsells) in a time when television, radio and social media did not exist.
From the 23rd to the 30th of June in the Latino Cultural Center of Dallas,Texas (USA), and from the 9th of July to the 4th of September in The Michelson Museum of Art of Marshall, Texas (USA)
Paintings ordered to illustrate the calendar
The same method has always been used to illustrate the poster: commission a prestigious artist of critical and public renown to paint an exclusive piece of artwork for us with the purpose of being reproduced as a calendar. A tradition we started in 1899 for our 1900 calendar, and which we have repeated every year since.
What do we ask the artist for? The image to be figurative, to have in mind that it is going to be reproduced as a poster, and its content to be related to our activities. In addition to those we have already mentioned, involving blasting products and services, and sporting shotshells, these also include products and services for the defence industry, and key raw materials for nitro-chemical activities.
Among the collection’s artists are some of the most representative figures of 20th and 21st-century Spanish painting: Arturo Mélida, Cecilio Plá, Manuel Benedito, Julio Romero de Torres, Manolo Valdés, Rafael Canogar, Eduardo Arroyo, Isabel Quintanilla, Ángel Mateo Charris and so on.
More than a hundred years, more than a hundred paintings
That is how it has carried on for more than a hundred years, with more than a hundred calendars and other works that make up a collection that is unique in its concept, subject matter and style. A pioneering initiative in the field of commercial patronage, which at its outset constituted a mean to popularize art throughout society.
The calendar collections, in their day considered “the museum for those who have never been to a museum”, are nowadays well known by the general public through the exhibitions that the MAXAM Foundation periodically organizes to display the works of art that illustrated the calendars.
Through their creations we can observe the evolution of not just the art of painting, but also that of our society and our habits, as well as the world around us, the world that MAXAM’s products shape.
The same method has always been used to illustrate the poster: commission a prestigious artist of critical and public renown to paint an exclusive piece of artwork for us with the purpose of being reproduced as a calendar. A tradition we started in 1899 for our 1900 calendar, and which we have repeated every year since.
What do we ask the artist for? The image to be figurative, to have in mind that it is going to be reproduced as a poster, and its content to be related to our activities. In addition to those we have already mentioned, involving blasting products and services, and sporting shotshells, these also include products and services for the defence industry, and key raw materials for nitro-chemical activities.
Among the collection’s artists are some of the most representative figures of 20th and 21st-century Spanish painting: Arturo Mélida, Cecilio Plá, Manuel Benedito, Julio Romero de Torres, Manolo Valdés, Rafael Canogar, Eduardo Arroyo, Isabel Quintanilla, Ángel Mateo Charris and so on.
More than a hundred years, more than a hundred paintings
That is how it has carried on for more than a hundred years, with more than a hundred calendars and other works that make up a collection that is unique in its concept, subject matter and style. A pioneering initiative in the field of commercial patronage, which at its outset constituted a mean to popularize art throughout society.
The calendar collections, in their day considered “the museum for those who have never been to a museum”, are nowadays well known by the general public through the exhibitions that the MAXAM Foundation periodically organizes to display the works of art that illustrated the calendars.
Through their creations we can observe the evolution of not just the art of painting, but also that of our society and our habits, as well as the world around us, the world that MAXAM’s products shape.