The first memories I have of Toni Hormigo go back as far as my very early childhood, I remember very clearly his father's workshop, a little room by the family house that I used to visit sometimes.
I was allowed to stay, if I kept myself still and quiet, for five, ten minutes, at the most. (There were a lot of small and fragile objects, easy to break or to lose, as well as big and small sharp tools, dangerous in children's hands). Toni and sometimes his brothers (Leonardo, Luís, Paco and little sister Laly) used to work, after coming home from work, helping their father, and learning from his techniques at the same time. It was fascinating to see them working, carving little heads, about one inch long, coloured with inks and varnished, faces of all the races and all the expressions of the entire world, Chinese, Red-skin-indians, Indian-indians. Moors, Vikings, your neighbour, Cossacks, Africans, the Marx Brothers, etc.
Some had big, smiling mouths with small perfect white teeth, some looking sad, some terrific. These heads were all different, some sold as single buttons or a couple of cufflinks, but most were afterwards strung, a few together, the short ones as bracelets, the long ones as necklaces, that looked like a big United Nations meeting. Thousands of these little heads were later sold in the first souvenir shops in San Antonio, Ibiza-Town, Mallorca, and Mainland Spain.
Since then, from the little heads made of the same oleander shoots that the ibicenco flaúte are made from, Antonio's artwork hasn't stopped growing,
Ibiza and Formentera are these days firmly established in The World of the Arts.
The legend of the Islands covers every creative area… from the Ibiza disco sounds, with world class DJs, jazz festivals and live concerts by top-ten stars every year, to the fashion world, with Ad Lib and the Ibiza-Look, known and sold all over the world.
The cinema industry is working locally more and more every year and indeed three proper films were made in the last fifteen months, using the Islands' scenarios and landscapes, and featuring some local artists and extras (one of them, Lucía y el sexo, filmed in Ibiza and Formentera, has been selected this week as a possible candidate for the Oscars). The Modern Dance and Classical Ballet, Theatre and Literature perform several first-class events every year.
The Plastic Arts, sculpture and especially painting, have a very special relevance, for the number and the great quality of the artists, locals, and residents, that live and create on the Islands, and export their wares to the rest of the world.
It is very difficult to think of any other place with such a small community (107,000 inhabitants' altogether) where we can find so many local and international well-known famous artists. Their artistic work forms part of many valuable private collections and it can be seen in some of the best modern art museums in the world.
It is an honour and a real privilege to be able to create such a talented Artist's Gallery, and from this website show and share it with art lovers' worldwide.
For the first edition of Artists on Ibiza, we have had the privilege to speak with one of Ibiza and Formentera´s most important native artists, Antonio Hormigo Escandell (Toni Hormigo, as he prefers to be called).
Toni Hormigo was born in San Antonio (Ibiza) in 1933. His father also named Antonio was born in San Antonio and his mother, Catalina, was from Formentera.
The family spent the years of the Spanish civil war (1936-39) in Barcelona, where he went to his first school.
After the war, back in Ibiza, Toni soon began to work as an apprentice in different jobs, such as cobbler, barber, and sailor. He started learning the carving techniques from his father, a very talented artisan, at his workshop, until his military service, as a marine in the navy.
Afterwards back in Ibiza again, he started as a lighthouse keeper, also being paid for sailing snipes that tourists used to rent, but he never stopped his second job as a carving artisan.
Little by little he started to have more and more demands for his artistic works. With this extra money he bought himself a bigger boat with an engine to take tourists out fishing and lived on it for a few years, as well as carving.
He got married in 1969 to Carmen Juan Botella. They have two sons, Paco, and Marcelo. Both sons carry on with the family tradition and also have presented some sculptures in Toni's exhibitions.
In 1973, he had to take one of the most important decisions of his life when new tax laws and an enormous rise in the cost of the insurance were taking all the profits. He could not continue with his job and the business. He was not long married, with two baby sons, still building and paying for his little new house, at Port des Torrent. And so he sold the boat and decided to live exclusively by his art.
His life became his family, his house, full of art pieces, his work and his workshop, his friends around the table, with good wine and simple, healthy, tasty food, good conversation, classical background music and non-stop smoking (from the local tobacco "tabac pota" to "Montecristo" Havana cigars).
The size of his sculptures was getting bigger as he was experimenting with other types of wood, "sabina", junipers, pine-tree, almond-tree, carob-been-tree and most of the local trees, including some huge exotic trunks, that, from time to time appear on the beach after a storm,
He also created interesting sculptures in stone. But probably, his best creations are the big sculptures made of an entire olive tree's massive, twisted trunk.
There is no other artist that I know or have heard of anywhere in the world, that does anything like to these magnificent masterpieces. For instance, there is his altar in the restaurant Sa Capella in San Antonio, a sculpture over two tons in weight and almost five metres high. History, Mythology, and Nature are his favourite subjects.
At the same time, he was developing his new and personal techniques, enlarging his knowledge of the materials that he was working with, working harder and longer every day. His artistic talent and well-gained reputation were growing at the same rhythm and in the same proportions. And so, it is today, still growing, still working and creating, even more then ever. God bless you, Toni.
Individual and Collective Exhibitions with the Grupo 77
1964
Premio Isla de Ibiza (Island of Ibiza Award) Sala es Pilo
1969
Galería Vallribera, Sant Antoni
1970
Galerìa La Rana, Sant Antoni
1973
He is invited to participate with a collective exhibitions tour in Norway
1974
Sala de Exposiciones La Caixa, Ibiza. (His first exclusive exhibition)
1975
Galeía Bes, Sant Antoni. Eivissa
Pintores de IbizaPalacio de la Virreina, Barcelona
Galería Exoteria, Madrid
1976
Semana de Ibiza, Madrid
III Semana Cultural de Ibiza
1977
Galería Internacional, Sant Antoni. Toni Hormigo, together with three painters, forms the Grupo 77 Paco Torres, (Cadiz, Spain) Hemio Mitchells (Germany) Bert May (Germany)
Inauguration of the Monumento al payes (monument to the peasant)
Es Verro in Sant Antoni
1978
Salón de Primavera (Spring Salon) Museo de Arte Contemporaneo, Ibiza
Kulturkreis, Oberursel, Frankfurt, Germany
1979
Homenaje a la Infancia (Homage to the Infancy), La Caixa, Ibiza
Centro Cultural de la Villa de Madrid. (Madrid's Cultural Centre)
Sala de Exposiciones del Casino de Ibiza
1980
II Salón de Primavera Museo de Arte Contemporaneo, (Contemporary Art Museum) Ibiza
Artistas de San José (San José artist) Galería Berri, Sant Agustí, Ibiza
Artistas Ibicencos Galería Mulí, Santa Gertrudis, Ibiza
Galería Internacional, Sant Antoni, Eivissa
Homenage a D'aifa, Casa de la Curia, Ibiza
Circulo Cultural de Bellas Artes, Palma de Mallorca
In the 1980s and 1990s decades, he continued working at the same rhythm, with one or two, individual and collective exhibitions in Ibiza every year and some out of the island, in Spain and other European countries
1982
Galería L'oeil de Boeuf Paris, France
1985
Galería Nova" Hagen, Germany
1986
Casa Lis Salamanca, Spain
1987
Galería Palette Wuppertal, Germany
Here, Toni Hormigo form part of the Gruppe R B K
1988
Instituto Español de Cultura (Spanish Culture Institute) Munich, Germany
1998
Eivissa, anys 1960 (Ibiza, the 1960s) A collective exhibitions of the best artist of the island in the 1960s
(MAC) Museo de Arte Contemporaneo (Contemporary Art Museum) Ibiza.
1999
Eivissa, L'art dels 1970 (Ibiza Art in the 1970s) (MAC) another collective exhibition of the best artist in the 1970s
His work has also been reflected in several cinema documentaries, such as Ibiza es una fiesta (Ibiza is a fiesta) filmed by Granena Beautiful People a German film. Baleares film by V. Roselló
Also in the books Ibiza, la senda de los elefantes (The track of the elephants) by Mariano Planells
Diccionario de los secretos de Ibiza (Ibiza's secrets dictionary) by Mariano Planells
En la isla del dios Bes (In the god Bes island) by A. Barbero
Diccionario biografico de las Pitiusas by M. Pesce
Gran Enciclopedia de la Pintura L'escultura a las Balears (Great Encyclopaedia of Painting and Sculpture of the Balearics)
Eivissa, anys 1960, el naixemen de Babel (Ibiza, the 1960s, the birth of Babel)
Eivissa. L'art dels 1970 (Ibiza. The Art at the 1970s)
All Pictures courtesy of Antonio Hormingo Escandell
José P Ribas