Lorca's grand designs go under the hammer

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http://www.elpais.com/articulo/english/Lorca/s/grand/designs/go/under/the/hammer/elpepueng/20111019elpeng_8/Ten


Three of Federico García Lorca's costume designs for The Shoemaker's Prodigious Wife, which premiered in 1930.-

There's no shadow of a doubt when it comes to naming the most popular figures in Spanish culture. Along with that of Pablo Picasso, Federico García Lorca is the name that stands tallest within and beyond our borders, whatever the current reason may be.

And the current reason is no small matter: the auction in Barcelona today, at the Sala Balclis, of 10 costume designs that Lorca personally created for his play The Shoemaker's Prodigious Wife, which premiered in 1930 at the Teatro Español in Madrid. They are drawings that symbolize, in a definitive manner, the close friendship between the poet and playwright and his actress of choice, Margarita Xirgu.

As a spokesman for the auction house put it on Tuesday: "Lorca generates a lot of expectation and there has been a huge number of people interested in acquiring the drawings ? institutions as well as individuals, many of them outside of Spain."

The 10 illustrations - eight of women and two of men, and which measure 230 by 175 millimeters - are in keeping with the purest Lorca style, characterized by a simple look highlighted by the use of colored pencils, evocative of a childlike world. Elaborate and filled with detail - despite their simplicity - the drawings incorporate annotations by the author where he explained how he wanted the finished costumes to be. On the one that the star has to wear during the second act, he wrote: "Violent red dress and red rose. No earrings. More full-skirted than the previous dress. A bare arm. Stripe around the neck and belt of a different red." On another, two pieces of sample fabric for making the dress are even attached to the paper with a pin. And there it has stayed, now rusted.