Sculptor Stefan von Reiswitz leaves his mark on Malaga

This German artist, who formed part of the 'Colectivo Palmo' which revitalised the city's cultural scene, has died, aged 87

Antonio Javier López

Monday, 27 May 2019, 08:57

At the age of 14 he sold his first painting, met José Ortega y Gasset and decided to learn Spanish in order to read his work in its original version.

Always mischievous and refined, his love for the Mediterranean and his nomadic soul led him from his native Germany to Malaga, where his work forms part of the city's landscape through his most popular creations: the sculptures of the Parque del Oeste, now orphaned by the death of Stefan von Reiswitz.

The sculptor, who lived in Malaga from the middle of the last century, has died of pneumonia at the age of 87.

"It was a relief to get here. I lived in Marbella and got fed up in 1954 or 55. I went to Torremolinos, which was a beautiful town. I got off the bus and there was a terrible wind, with a lot of dust in the air and I got back on the bus until I got to Malaga. There was a splendid sun and no wind here, so I decided to stay. There were coaches, a small port, a small bullring... I learned to drive in El Perchel... It was quite an experience...", the artist recalled with laughter during an interview with SUR on the occasion of his 80th birthday.

He would soon become involved in the cultural life of the city, first in the 'Grupo Picasso' and later in the 'Colectivo Palmo', the group formed by artists such as Enrique Brinkmann, Dámaso Ruano, Manuel Barbadillo and Juan Béjar, among others, which was crucial in the transition towards modern art made in Malaga during the last third of the 20th century.

A painter before a sculptor, in the 1980s Stefan shifted from one discipline to another as he delved deeper into his unique iconography of fantastic animals related to surrealism, although the artist himself always mistrusted that label.

"I encountered all creatures in my childhood nightmares, when I spent all my formative years under the Nazis and those golden eagles that panicked me," the German artist recalled. After all, Stefan always understood artistic creation as a matter of instinct rather than intellect, even though his residence on top of a hill in El Limonar was filled with art books.

The power of imagination

The Picasso Foundation, the now closed Sala Alameda of the Diputacion and the Taller Gravura dedicated some of the most memorable exhibitions in Malaga to an artist who is part of the collection of the Museo del Patrimonio Municipal, but not of the Museum of Malaga.

He always gave the impression of thinking of something else, of a world of his own that we are invited to enter through his sculptures. He himself summed it up in an accurate wish: "Imagination has few places to fly and I hope that the Parque del Oeste will serve that purpose." And of course it does.

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