Seated Sculpture of Ángel Guimerá

Santa Cruz de Tenerife · Category: Art · Subcategory: Sculpture · Year: 1982 · Authors: Josep Cardona i Furró, Josep Codina y Corona

Located in Plaza de la Madera, right in front of the door of the city's main theatre, stands this sculpture dedicated to Ángel Guimerá y Jorge (Santa Cruz de Tenerife, 1845 - Barcelona 1924), writer, poet, playwright and one of the leading figures of the Renaixença or "resurgence" of Catalan literature.

The sculpture is a copy of an original made at the beginning of the 20th century by the sculptor Josep Cardona i Furró (1878-1922), on the occasion of a tribute paid to Guimerá in Barcelona. In 1982 another Catalan sculptor, Josep Codina y Corona, made three bronze replicas of the original work, intended to be located in different places: one in Plaza San José Oriol in Barcelona; another in a garden area on Xavier street in the Catalan town of El Vendrell; and, finally, the one we see outside the theatre of the Tenerife capital.

The sculpture is made of cast bronze and rests on a square-based granite pedestal about 30 cm high. It represents the illustrious figure reclining on his left arm in a kind of armchair.

Although Ángel Guimerá, son of a Catalan father and a Tenerife mother, lived almost all his life in Barcelona after moving from Tenerife to Catalonia at barely six years old, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, as the city that saw his birth, always considered him one of its most illustrious sons. For this reason, since 1923 his name has been assigned both to the municipal theatre (Teatro Guimerá) and to the adjacent street, the route where the playwright's birthplace was located.

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