met José Hernández's work more than twelve years ago when we illustrate with several of his creations, one of the numbers of Bazar. Literature review , the magazine that I then ran with Emilio Chavarria. I was fascinated from then those grotesque images of humans, those misshapen creatures of the animal kingdom, some architecture impossible ... the earthy, haunting and very personal color, shadows and veils of all those pictures visionaries who so generously allowed us to play. Now I've had the opportunity to meet him in person. He invited me a few days ago to his home in Villanueva del Rosario, an oil mill of the eighteenth century in which he lives six months a year for thirty. That also works all day from early morning until late at night almost without interruption, he said, except for food and daily walks among olive trees at sunset. Very slowly. Making numerous sketches of projects then move onto the canvas. Watching and watching the layers of color and allowing them to dry days and days to follow, to get those unusual range of blacks and browns that have earned him much fame. During the tour we did for the study, explained to Carmen and me pictures with astonishing ease, two or three large format that was there and had been ongoing for four years! I approached reverential look at them. He, however, hands, passing the palm of your hand through the fabric, caressing with the same astonishing ease and disaffection with which he spoke of them. "You see, already dry, he said, will continue tomorrow. It's an order. Maybe next year it delivered." I nodded dumbfounded. Another Antonio López, Víctor Erice another, but the dream and the overflowing imagination this time, I thought. I felt privileged indeed there may admire the author with those few pictures prodigious. Others had small form factor and I did not resist to ask, naively, for its price. I do not know, I said mischievously, that talk it over with my daughter who is who handles calculate their value. After the study tour, we sat in the courtyard of the mill along with other friends who had arrived in the meantime. There we ate a wonderful lamb Tallinn and we drank several bottles of wine and some more of Johnny Walker. We parted at dawn with the tongue stuck almost to the palate. Unforgettable encounter, it goes without saying.
Jose Hernandez, also a painter of difficult approval, with a world of their own and absolutely unique technique (not me, they say the best specialists: Serraller Calvo, Juan Manuel Bonet, Martinez Sarrión, Corredor Matheos) also passes through be one of the best English writers in the period and a book illustrator of the first order (are excellent, but great, editions for bibliophiles of Kafka's Metamorphosis, or Borges' The Aleph, or The tunnel Sabato, illustrated by him). It has also signed some memorable sets for plays by Francisco Nieva, above all, and many posters for movies. The Bunuel, among others, so close, on the other hand, the hallucinatory world of José Hernández (or vice versa). Here I give you the link to your website, will not exaggerating.
Jose Hernandez, also is married to Sharon Smith, whom I knew before him at a gathering dedicated to Muñoz Rojas in which we intervened and was included later in the documentary about the bard antequerano timeless poet. Our co-host and author of several collections of short stories delicious. One of them will soon see the light in our editorial. I'll give news.
