Artur Heras, Bauhaus, 1975

Contextos de la Colección Martínez Guerricabeitia

José Martínez-Medina y Montoro (1919-2006) took over, from 1952 and together with his siblings, the company they had inherited from their father, the founder of the furniture factory, Juan Martínez Medina. José's dedication was not restricted to collaborating in the management of the family business, but he also pursued a career as a designer for the company, which is now considered to be one of the main contributions to the modernisation of furniture and interior design in València during the second half of the 20th century. His training at the city's School of Fine Arts and his experience, working in the family business from a very young age, endowed him with high skills as a draughtsman, product and interior designer. But also his constant interest in everything associated with artistic creation, as well as his concern for adapting himself and his productive environment to the new aesthetic trends of his time, made José Martínez-Medina an influential personality in the Valencian artistic world.

The store that the Martínez-Medina family opened in Poeta Querol street in València in 1962 became, thanks to José's efforts, a meeting place for those who shared his interests towards an innovative approach to creativity, either from a theoretical point of view, as in the case of Vicente Aguilera Cerni, or from an artistic practice, as in the case of Ximo Michavila. In addition to his relationships with artists who had already acquired a certain recognition in academic and critical circles, José Martínez-Medina helped a large group of emerging young artists to gain visibility. For decades, he set up the aforementioned furniture store as an exhibition hall for recent creations, some of which were the result of creative experiments and strongly non-conformist attitudes towards more conventional conceptions. In this way, he acted as a contact and enabler so that even those who opted for the most daring proposals could find ways to enter the art market and disseminate their works.

The main body of the exhibition comes from the Martínez Guerricabeitia Collection of the Universitat de València, which has among its holdings a good representation of paintings and graphic works by artists whose artistic relationship with José Martínez-Medina is well known. To this contribution, other works from the Martínez-Medina family itself have been added, as well as loans from the IVAM and from various artists or their heirs, covering the period of José Martínez-Medina's greatest artistic involvement, from the 1960s to the end of the 20th century. In addition to the interest that these works themselves have as evidence of the vitality of artistic creation in València over a long period, the Valencian Archive of Design of the Universitat de València, as the organising body, wishes to direct this exhibition towards demonstrating the intense structural and homological connections between the world of design and that of the plastic arts within the great framework of creative practices inspired by the ideal of innovation.