Fausto Olivares

Fausto Olivares Palacios (1940–1995) was an Andalusian painter born in Jaén. He studied Fine Arts in Madrid. He traveled to Paris and other cities in Europe before returning to Jaén in 1966, where he taught drawing and painting at the School of Arts and Crafts (now School of Art Joseph Nogué), where he served later as director. In 1981 he left his teaching activity to pursue an artistic career that led him to exhibit in many cities in Spain and Europe. With Françoise Gérardin, he had three sons: Fausto, Jaime and Efrén. He died in his hometown in May 1995. There is an Atelier-Museum Fausto Olivares in France. In 2010, on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of her husband's birth, Françoise Gérardin published a work in French: Evocations, my husband, Fausto Olivares, painter. Fausto Olivares Cózar and Sérvula Palacios Cózar lived in the Magdalena district of Jaén, during the end of the Spanish Civil War. They lost their first daughter, Flor, just a few months old. Then Fausto (1940), Jose, Francisco, Ceferino, Maribel, Domingo Jesús, Pedro and Maria Florencia were born. Despite the difficult times of the post-Franco period, the family tried to give every child a proper education. From his childhood, Fausto showed clear artistic predispositions, and concretized his skills by learning from the hand of D. Enrique Barrios, and later in the company of Francisco Cerezo Moreno. During his teenage years, he alternated working hours with his father and his brothers with drawing and painting classes. At the same time he made some works that allowed him to reach already a little notoriety in the city. He prepared the entrance examination at the Escuela Superior de Bellas Artes de San Fernando in Madrid, with Don Pablo Martín del Castillo, and at the age of 18, he left for the Spanish capital. At the School of Fine Arts, he had for companions Dario Villalba, Ángel Estrada, Isidro López Murias. His friend Luis Santiago, a musician, gave him the opportunity to meet flamenco artists like Pepe el de la Matrona, Lola Flores, Antonio Mairena .