"La Murga", fragment of theatrical scenography 50s

Autor: Estudio Ressti

Era: 1950

Origin: Estudio Ressti

Technique: Natural pigments on kraft paper

Support: Paper adhered to canvas with bast

Dimensions: Total size 2 x 2,5 m.

Framed  with natural wood perimeter mad hand-painted in black

Fragment of scenography of the act " La murga". These scenographies were designed to cover the entire stage so their sizes are usually very large, this is a fragment. Painted on paper, with natural pigments, glued to canvas.

Due to its size and conditions, it is a special piece for large spaces, such as stairwells, etc... Also highly recommended for window dressing or visual merchandising. Its marked decorative character, as well as, their origin make these pieces something very special.

Restituto Cendejas Pascual, theatrical set designer and painter, was born in Maranchón (Guadalajara) in 1906; he died in Nerja (Málaga) on 9 April 1997. He opened Estudio Ressti in Calle Olmo in Madrid, a workshop for the performing arts that would remain open from 1940 to 1970.

When Restituto Cendejas Pascual - Resti for his friends - left Maranchón in the early 1920s, it was clear to him that he wanted to succeed in something he had always liked: the world of painting and theatrical scenography. At a time when in theatres the decoration was as important as good scripts.

He entered the world of theatre when he was barely twenty years old in Madrid, where he went from his native Maranchón to earn a living in the mechanical workshop of a fellow countryman. From there he went on to work as a clerk in a bookshop and from there to learn the craft of painting at the School of Fine Arts, which led him to the workshop of a successful stage designer in those years, the Valencian Manuel Martínez Mollá, from whose workshop he went to that of the Catalan Manuel Fontanals, one of the most representative stage directors of the 1920s and 1930s. With Manuel Fontanals he toured the theatres of Madrid until the Civil War, which paralysed part of Spain's artistic life. Resti resumed his activity in the 1940s, with theatrical projects for the great stages of Zaragoza, Barcelona and Valencia. In Zaragoza he made his own debut, signing the set design for the play "La Mala Uva", by Pedro Muñoz Seca; and in Barcelona he created the set design for "Las Maravillosas", by Antonio Paso Cano and Tomás Borrás.

In the mid 1940s he was already flying solo, founding his own performing arts studio: ESTUDIO RESSTI in Calle Olmo in Madrid, from which he carried out numerous productions for the Teatro Español, including works such as "Bodas de Sangre", by Lorca; "Electra", by Benito Pérez Galdós, and "Tierra Baja", by Ángel Guimerá. He not only worked for the Teatro Español, but also for the Teatro de la Zarzuela, the Pavón or the Reina Victoria and, in short, for all those in Madrid, and even toured part of Europe with his productions, triumphing in Paris and London; travelling as far as Japan, where in Tokyo he staged several shows at Sankey Hall, coming to live in Los Angeles to triumph also in the USA with shows with deep Spanish roots, lyric and zarzuela. He travelled halfway around the world, from Egypt to New Zealand.

Estudio Ressti was a studio refuge for a generation of young painters, a place where they could earn a living before becoming painters.