Delhy Tejero

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Delhy Tejero, name used since 1929 by Adela Tejero Bedate (Toro, Zamora, 1904 Madrid, October 10th, 1968), was a painter and draftsman from the so-called «Age of Silver».

Biography

Born in Toro, Adela was the second of three daughters, whom, after the early death of their mother, were educated and looked after by their father, Agustín Tejero, the City Council secretary. She took drawing classes at the González Allende Foundation, which was an institute affiliated to the Institución Libre de Enseñanza (ILE, English: The Free Institution of Education), and published her first illustrations in the local newspaper, El Noticiero de Toro. In 1925, her father sent her to Madrid to the school San Luis de los Franceses to study French, shorthand and dressmaking. The day after her arrival, she had her entrance exam for the school of Arts and Crafts. Her intention was to enter the School of Fine Arts, which she achieved in 1926. She was granted two scholarships for the first four years of her studies. During this time, she recognized that she did not learn any French, but she was able to enter the Academy of San Fernando. There, she befriended Maruja Mallo, Remedios Varo, and Pitti Bartolozzi, who described her in the following way:

“Delhy, an attractive woman, was somewhat extravagant; she attracted the most attention because of her outfits, designed and made by herself, she painted her nails black and wore a black cape, which, together with her dark hair, gave her a sense of mystery, she smoked from long cigarette holders, and changed her name from Adela to Delhy, influenced by a certain exoticism of the time and with a desire to renounce to a tradition past that was asfixiating her.”

The Ministry suppressed the scholarship that would allow her to continue living in Madrid and studying. Confronted with the dilemma of returning home or staying in Madrid, Delhy Tejero proposed to herself that she would acquire the economic independence in order to freely continue the studies she had chosen, corresponding to the model of an independent woman in Spain known as the modernas (English: the modern women). She presented her drawings to various journals, offering to collaborate. This was how she began her professional career as an illustrator for journals such as Estampa, Crónica, Blanco y Negro, Nuevo Mundo and La Esfera. During the sixties, Delhy Tejero continued to publish her illustrations, including self-authored short stories in newspapers such as ABC and Ya.

Her economic independence allowed her to live in the Residencia de Señoritas (English: Ladies’ Residence), directed by María de Maetzu, during four years, where she met intellectuals and artists who would hold meetings there. She also established friendship with her roommates and their families such as the Valle-Inclán family, Josefina Carabias and Marina Romero. At the same time, she began to know new artistic orientations. In October of 1929, she obtained the title for Professor of Drawing and Fine Arts at the Academy of San Fernando. That year, she decided to change her name, Adela, to Delhy, from the diminutive Adelita and inspired by the capital of India. In 1930, she received an Award of Appreciation at the National Exhibit of Fine Arts. From January to June of 1931, she studied mural techniques in Paris and Belgium. When she returned to Spain, she was named interim professor of the Academy of Arts and Crafts in Madrid.

Delhy Tejero had her first studio in 1932, on the Miguel Moya street in Madrid. That her, she was awarded the third medal in decorative arts for her work “Castilla”. During the month of December, she held her first individual exhibit with mural projects, oil painting in large formats and a collection of drawings with experimental techniques such as decalcomania for her witches series, a creation which was later attributed, in 1939, to Oscar Domínguez.

Avant-garde period

Delhy searched for the artistic knowledge of the avant-garde, contact with her contemporaries and other perspectives from which to view the world. This brought her to travel both within and outside of the Spanish borders. In 1934, she painted the work “Mercado Zamorano” (English: Zamoran Market), which she presented in the National Exhibit dedicated to regional dresses. The work received excellent reviews from the critique. That same year, she obtained a scholarship from the Board of the Extension of Studies and left for Paris to study mural painting.

In 1936, she spent her holidays in Morocco, most likely extending her stay towards September because of the outbreak of the civil war. Delhy managed to return to Spain, but it was not possible for her to arrive to Madrid to continue giving classes. She stayed in Toro, where she worked as a drawing teacher at the local high school. In 1937, she was appointed to paint the murals for lunch rooms in schools in Salamanca, and for the Condestable Hotel in Burgos. When she finished these commissions, she asked to travel to Florence where she would stay during two years. In 1939, she returned to Paris where she came close to Surrealism, especially with Oscar Domínguez and André Bréton. She took a painting course at the University of Sorbonne and a course in Theosophy. She participated in the exhibition “Le Rêve dans l’art et la litterature” alonside Miró, Domínguez, Man Ray, Chagall, and others.

Spiritualist and transitional period

In August of 1939 she returned to Spain. She installed her home-study in La Prensa, the building on Plaza del Callao in Madrid, and painted the ceiling of a cinema installed on the ground floor of the property. This year, she had to face a file of professional debugging for having abandoned her classes during the war years. Although she continued to demonstrate the impossibility of having done so by being away from Spain, the Ministry of Education closed the case by removing the Chair of Mural Painting.

In 1943 she was awarded third place in the Painting section of the National Exhibit. That same year, her father died. Through the religious circles led by Father César Vaca, who followed the Christian doctrines of Teilhard de Chardin, and by her contact with aristocrats such as Lilí Álvarez, Delhy Tejero went through what she called her “second mysticism”. During this time, her work lost all of its innovate quality, as if all the knowledge she had acquired was somewhat dormant. During this time she destroyed the works of art she created in Paris.

In 1947, after the group show organized by the Spanish Government in Buenos Aires, she progressively abandoned her mystic lines of work. She returned to painting the human figure but added her own personal style by fusing them together creating one form out of two, or two forms out of three. In 1948, she won the contest organized by the City Council of Zamora with her mural project El Amanecer jurídico Zamorano (English: The Legal Dawn of Zamora).

After 1951, she experienced a renaissance of the avant-garde tendencies towards abstraction. In 1953, she was the only woman to participate in the first abstract exhibition of Santander. The following exhibit was collective, in the Habana, in 1954. And her last one was a solo show in the rooms of the Direction of Fine Arts in Madrid. In 1959 she suffered a myocardium heart attack. During the following years, she painted murals by commission. A trip to Paris brought her to realize the death of surrealism. Her sickness was becoming worse, but she continued to paint and illustrate until October 10th of 1968, when she died by a chest angina in Madrid.

Awards and Recognitions

1930: Award of Appreciation in the National Exhibit of Fine Arts 1932: Third medal in Decorative Arts for her work “Castilla” in the National Exhibit 1934: Scholarship from the Board of the Extension of Studies 1943: Awarded the third medal in the Painting Section of the National Exhibit 1948: Won the contest organized by the City Council of Zamora On February 23rd, 2019, the City Council of Toro held a solemn and extraordinary session to appoint Delhy Tejero the title of the Predilect Daughter of the city of Toro. In 2019 she participated in the collective exhibit “Dibujantas, pioneras de la Ilustración” (English: Draughtswomen, pioneers of Illustration) at the ABC museum.

Legacy

Si yo no hubiera nacido en Toro…... el ámbito natural de mi abuelo eran los escolapios, los mercedarios; luego estaban las visitas al cementerio todos los domingos, para rezar ante la tumba de su madre. Era un ambiente muy restringido. (English: “If I had not been born in Toro…the natural environment of my grandfather was the Piarists, the Mercedaries; then were the visits to the cemetery every Sunday, to pray before the tomb of her mother. It was a very restricted environment.)

Years later, in 2005 the exhibit 'Delhy Tejero, 111 Drawings', was celebrated in the Museo Municipal de Arte Contemporáneo Conde Duque de Madrid, where one could see the traditional genre painting of Delhy that reflected that society, the dresses of the rich Zamorans, the walk towards the cementery, the rolling lands of Castilla.

Collections

• Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía
• Museo ABC

Bibliography

• Isabel Fuentes González, Delhy Tejero entre la tradición y la modernidad, 1904-1936, Zamora: Diputación de Zamora, 1998. ISBN 84-86873-67-3 Search this book on .
• Sánchez Santiago, Tomás, Zamora y la vanguardia, Valladolid: Fundación Instituto Castellano y Leonés de la Lengua, 2003. ISBN 84-933453-2-6 Search this book on .
• Delhy Tejero, Los cuadernines (Diarios, 1936-1968), edición de Mª Dolores Vila Tejero y Tomás Sánchez Santiago, Zamora: Diputación de Zamora, 2004. ISBN 84-87066-53-4 Search this book on .. 2ª ed.: León: Eolas, 2018. ISBN 84-17315-33-0 Search this book on ..
• Tània Balló Las Sinsombrero 2. Editorial Espasa. Barcelona 2018 ISBN 9788467054002 Search this book on .

External Links

• Sitio oficial de Delhy Tejero
• Mujeres en Vanguardia - La Residencia de Señoritas (1913-1936)
• Vídeo sobre la exposición Dibujantas en el Museo ABC en 2019

Newfoundland

Categoría:Pintores de España del siglo XX Categoría:Toresanos Categoría:Ilustradores de España Categoría:Pintores de Castilla y León Categoría:Pintoras de España Categoría:Pensionados de la JAE

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Delhy Tejero

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