A lifetime in art in Calpe, Costa Blanca

THE painter Fernando Baquero is showing his work at Calpe’s Casa de Cultura, 20 years after his last exhibition in the Costa Blanca town. He does so with a retrospective, Fernando Baqueo, 90 años de Arte (Fernando Baquero, 90 years of art) that opened on March 4. Baquero, born in Aranjuez (Madrid) in 1930, began painting at the age of 13, later studying in Barcelona where he became a teacher. In the 1960s he travelled to Germany, making a name for himself as a caricaturist with a prestigious national newspaper. Publicity director for Phillips and an authorised copyist at the Prado art museum in Madrid, Baquero was a draughtsman by training and has always described himself as a self-taught artist. On his retirement, he came to live in Calpe which he fell in love with, in 1969, fascinated by the Peñon de Ifach, which he has since painted countless times. Baquero is also responsible for the mural in Calle Vicente Gallard. Since his retirement, he has taken part in national painting competitions winning many prizes and has pictures in public and private collections in Spain, Latin America, France, Switzerland and Germany. Baquero continues to paint each day. “With age, creativity does not come to a halt. On the contrary, I think I paint better now,” he said recently.