In the 1970s, when exhibiting Picasso in Spain was a challenge, Spanish art gallery owner Elvira Gonzalez dared to do it.
After living in France for three years and getting to know some of the exiled artists of the School of Paris and the great galleries, she returned to Madrid in the late 1960s and founded her own gallery with her husband, the painter Fernando Mignoni.
In 1971, days after its opening, the gallery suffered an attack. The reason: to exhibit engravings of the famous 'Vollard Suite', which Picasso completed between 1930 and 1936 commissioned by the French art dealer and gallery owner Ambroise Vollard. A group of assailants destroyed 24 of the prints with vitriol. Only two were saved and one was stolen.
Spain in the 1970s wasted Picasso completely. The artist, like others who lived outside the country, "was not sufficiently valued. The fact that they were outside Spain penalized them to enter fantastic national collections", explains Elvira Gonzalez in this interview published in El Confidencial, in which she recognizes that Picasso "has even changed the way she looks at painting". To read the full article click here: https://www.elconfidencial.com/el-grito/2022-11-08/entrevista-elvira-gonzalez-picasso_3519015/