The collector and gallery owner Roberto Sáenz de Gorbea has donated an important set of artworks comprised of paintings, sculptures, photographs and works on paper to the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum. They come from the collection assembled by Bilbao’s historical Windsor Kulturgintza gallery, which his father founded in 1971. For almost half a century, this venue was a prominent fixture in the art scene in the Basque Country. Roberto, who served as its director from 1981 until it closed in 2017, imprinted a clearly contemporary orientation on the gallery, closely tied to the Basque art scene.
The donation is comprised of more than 200 paintings and sculptures and an important collection of works on paper by almost 150 artists. It also includes a valuable document collection created over the course of the almost five decades that the gallery operated. These materials, which are extraordinarily valuable from the historiographic standpoint, will join the museum’s Library and Archive, thus adding a primary source that is essential in studies of contemporary Basque art.
Originally located at number 10 Calle Marqués del Puerto in Bilbao, Windsor was opened in 1971 on the lower floor of an elegant café whose atmosphere was as English as its name. The love of art of its owner, Miguel Sáenz, ended up materialising in a space where paintings and sculptures by Basque artists could be displayed and sold. Aurelio Arteta, Francisco Iturrino, Ramiro Arrue, Benito Barrueta and others were among the first to display their works there. This unique gallery soon became a hotspot for art lovers and collectors, who made it a meeting point where they could share ideas and interests. Between 1977 and 1982, it hosted not only art exhibitions but also other cultural initiatives, like poetry recitals, lectures, conversations and book launches.
The first professional show was held in 1972 with a group of Basque artists—from Ignacio Zuloaga to Juan de Aranoa—who were no longer living. It was followed by another one devoted to local creators who were still working, like Arturo Acebal Idígoras, José Barceló, Ciriaco Párraga and Carmelo García Barrena.
In 1977, Roberto Sáenz de Gorbea joined the gallery’s management. Years later, in 1981, he took over the reins and reoriented the exhibitions to focus on contemporary art and promote artists graduating from the Bilbao Fine Arts Faculty. He also renovated the space to adapt it to modern exhibition requirements and contemporary artistic practices—such as video and installations—which were becoming popular in Basque art at that time, and he changed the gallery’s name to Windsor Kulturgintza.
The catalogue of artists that Sáenz de Gorbea represented includes such prominent names as Txomin Badiola, Darío Urzay, Jesus Mari Lazkano and the most recent one, Kepa Garraza, among others. Other Spanish creators also displayed their works there, including Joan Miró, Antoni Tàpies, Carmen Calvo, Luis Gordillo, José Manuel Broto and Guillermo Pérez Villalta.
In this new period, Roberto teamed up with his brother, the art critic, teacher and researcher Xabier Sáenz de Gorbea, whose companion, Sonia Rueda, donated his personal archive on the artistic historiography of contemporary Spanish and Basque art to the museum in 2020.
In 1989, Windsor Kulturgintza moved to a new venue at number 14, Calle Juan de Ajuriaguerra, where it remained until it closed in 2017.
The Donation
Comprised of more than 200 works by almost 150 artists, not only is the Sáenz de Gorbea Donation a faithful representation of the professional history of the Windsor gallery, but through the selection of artists and works, it also offers a representative overview of the art produced in the Basque Country primarily in the eighties and nineties.
The set of works by Ramón Carrera stands out due to their uniqueness within Basque postwar sculpture. A former member of the Emen group, he showed his works at the Windsor for the first time in 1981 and became one of the gallery’s hallmark artists just as it was beginning to include the Basque avant-garde in its programming. The painter, teacher and former director of the Oteiza Foundation, Pedro Manterola, is from the same generation. The works also include important pieces that highlight the prominence reached by Basque sculpture in the eighties, with José Ramón Sáinz Morquillas as the bridge between the generations. But if there is a figure of special importante for the gallery, is the painter Iñaki de la Fuente.
The selection also includes works by Txomin Badiola (who showed at the gallery in 1982, 1984 and 1985), Pello Irazu (1985), Ricardo Catania and Xabier Elorriaga, but there are also important examples of painting from that same period in the works of Juan Luis Goenaga, Alfonso Gortázar, Daniel Tamayo, Darío Urzay and Alberto Rementería, just to name a few.
Francisco Ruiz de Infante, Alberto Oyarzabal, Alberto Peral, Paco Polán, Luis Candaudap, Edu López, José Ramón Amondarain, Jon Mikel Euba, Pablo Milicua, Manu Muniategi and Juan Ugalde, who also have important works in the collection, joined the Basque art scene in the early nineties and also held solo shows at the Windsor.
The works of Alfonso Albacete, Nacho Criado, Antón Lamazares, Curro González, Javier Valdeón and Concha Jerez, which are also included in the collection, are evidence of the network of relationships and support that Roberto Sáenz de Gorbea and the Windsor created with other galleries in Spain.
The works of the increasing number of women who joined the Spanish art scene is wonderfully represented in the donation with pieces by Juana Cima, Clara Gangutia, Begoña Goienetxea, Carmen Isasi, María José Lacadena, Menchu Lamas, Iratxe Larrea, Carmen Olabarri, Merche Olabe, Leyre Ormaetxe, Mertxe Périz, Sonia Rueda, Dora Salazar and Rita Sixto.