38 Views of the Armada

When Painter Julio de Diego was a boy of 15 in Madrid, he already knew that he wanted to be an artist, but his father, a wholesale and retail merchant, objected. Father insisted that Julio and Julio's brother should aim for business success. "He even removed the table from my bedroom to discourage me from drawing," recalls De Diego. "One day I found some of my drawings, and he had written all over them, destroying every one: 'You are a Bohemian and this will be the cause of your dying of hunger.' " So Julio stuffed a few clothes into a suitcase, left the house for good, and, true to the romantic pattern of art biographies, became a successful painter. His brother inherited the business, gambled it away, and killed himself.

At 62, now many years a U.S. citizen, Julio (pronounced hoo-lee-oh) de Diego is a gaunt, intense man, who suffers from the burden of being known to gossip-column readers only as a former husband of Gypsy Rose Lee. As an artist, he fits into no easy pigeonhole, and is far from what is commonly considered to be the mainstream of modern art. He is a traditionalist at heart--and one of the best--yet he is not afraid to pursue an eccentric notion wherever it may lead. Last week a De Diego show that opened at Manhattan's Landry Gallery attested not only to his technical gifts but also to his fertile brand of individualism. Who but Julio would exhibit 38 paintings devoted exclusively to the Armada (see color)? Actually, there are many reasons why he became intrigued by the Armada, from the fact that it set sail on May 9,* his birthday, to the fact that it is in every Spaniard's blood. Most of the paintings are small, but their scale does not detract from their impact. The ships struggle against wind and fire in a kind of wild dance; they glow bright red, founder among emerald waves, finally surrender to the sloshing rhythm of the sea. There is always high drama in the fall of a great fleet, and Julio de Diego has caught it well. The Armada's disaster has provided at least this welcome triumph.

When De Diego came to the U.S. at the age of 24, he was an ex-scenery designer, ex-ballet extra, ex-movie actor, ex-army officer, and a political exile. While working for the WPA, he did U.S. street scenes, landscapes, and "some very terrible murals." It was not until World War II, when he withdrew to his studio to paint "a war I did not see but a war I felt," that he hit his current stride. With the technique of the Spanish masters and the memory of Goya's Disasters of War, he turned out a series in which unearthly creatures marched and attacked in an eerie portrayal of all wars. It was a remarkable series, and his most ambitious, until he tackled the tragedy of the Armada.

* From Lisbon, in 1588. But gales kept it in the mouth of the harbor for nearly three weeks.

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