José Valverde finds success by putting a new twist on an old artistic style.

by Tom Mason

THE IMAGES THAT DANCE IN José Antonio Valverde-Alcaide’s paintings are at the same time familiar and exotic. The colors – bursts of red and yellow, the sun-drenched blues, whites and greens – project a powerful Mediterranean ambiance, conjuring up visions of the artist’s Spanish homeland. But the common themes of Maritime art – fishing communities, sailboats, the sea – seep onto his canvases as well. Valverde is a man perfectly balanced between two very different and distinct worlds that he melds together in his works of art.

For much of his life, Valverde has been a follower of the Fauvist tradition of art – giving life and movement to otherwise stationary subjects with vivid splashes of color. His paintings are displayed regularly at galleries throughout North America and Europe. His patrons include King Juan Carlos of Spain.

For three seasons every year, before the chilly October winds send him and his wife Doreen packing for Barcelona, Valverde’s world is centered around Chester Nova Scotia. Here, amid the stately summer mansions that ring the downtown core, the Valverdes maintain a large Second Empire Victorian home that is part studio, part art gallery and part family homestead. Built by Martin Zinck in 1865, the house for much of its life was a 12-room hotel known as Quedah Lodge that catered to everyone from well-heeled summer visitors to Norwegian exiles during World War II. Today its long dark halls hum with the shadows of history. You can almost sense the presence of the families that once stayed here, says Valverde. “It has a nice feeling. It’s a great place to play hide and seek with my wife.”

The house stands just a block away from the one in which the Valverdes raised their three children. The couple purchased and renovated it two years ago, turning much of the first floor into a gallery where Valverde exhibits and sells his work. Like his paintings, each room has its own unique flavor. At the end of one dead end hall, dappled sunlight illuminates a shrine to Saint Anthony, complete with photos of a 10-year-old Jose in altar boy robes, looking forlorn. “If you lose something, you can pray to Saint Anthony and he will find it for you,” he says matter-of-factly. The first floor kitchen is polished and modern. It opens into a spacious garden where the artist displays his whimsical metal sculptures. “They aren’t for sale. They are just for fun.”

Valverde hates the look of technology. Throughout the house, screens painted by his own hand are strategically placed to cover up the computers and printers that are a necessary part of his business. The colors on the walls – muted greens and golds –are a sharp contrast to the bright hues in his paintings. He finds strong colors distracting when he is working.

On the third floor Valverde’s studio is the most colorless room of all, a garret with stark white walls and large windows that look out over the Chester waterfront. This is where the artist spends much of his day. From one window he can see down Pleasant Street, the main commercial district of Chester. When he spots his friend, the realist painter Donald Curley, headed for their favorite coffee shop at mid-morning, he puts aside his brushes for awhile and follows along, to “argue” and to talk shop.

Large homes are in Valverde’s blood. It’s noble blood – on his mother’s side at least. His grandparents lived in a palace, the Casa del Arco del Dean in the city of Zaragoza, the capital city of Aragon. The regal interiors he was exposed to in his youth still creep into Valverde’s subconscious and into his art. A recurring theme in his paintings is a black and white tile floor – “it’s almost a signature for me,” he says. He’s not sure where he saw the floor but he knows it must be buried somewhere in his earliest memories.

Valverde’s comfort zone is a large second floor sitting room. Filled with plush, cosy furniture, it is the place where he and Doreen sit and talk, where friends and family gather for relaxation, coffee and long conversations. The room is strongly European in tone, filled with valuable antiques passed down from his mother’s aristocratic family home. Against one wall, an Empire-style curio cabinet is hand-painted with a dramatic 18th century scene. The oldest object in the room is a sideboard Valverde believes is from the 17th century. All around, the room’s high walls are covered with works of art done by friends – large portraits of Jose and Doreen, a complex fabric piece, still lifes and realism.

The interiors of his boyhood are one of Valverde’s most familiar subjects, but his works are also inspired by Nova Scotia’s south shore – scenes that he colors with his Spanish memories. In some of his paintings, sailboats etched in radiant colors play in the foreground while the homes of Chester and Mahone Bay fill the background. In one work, a couple in evening dress dance a tango in a Chester park; another portrays the town of Lunenburg, almost unrecognizable in washed out Mediterranean hues. “I think that inspiration comes from every angle. Life gives you experience and you use it,” he says.

Fate made Valverde a world traveler. During the turmoil of the Spanish Civil War his family sought out the sanctuary of South America. Later his father fell out of favor with the Franco government for a time and young Jose studied at Cambridge University in England. He came to Canada 40 years ago on an academic exchange. At the University of Alberta, the 31-year-old Valverde met Doreen, then a beautiful 18-year-old freshman student. The couple eventually made their way to Nova Scotia where Jose accepted a professorship at Acadia University in 1971. They discovered Chester and settled there soon after.

Chester is now clearly the center of Valverde’s world, but he admits that the village’s usual attractions – sailing, golf and slow-paced summer leisure – hold little appeal for him. “If you want to lose a race, take me on your boat,” he laughs. For him, the village has other charms. It is Chester’s milieu – the metaphorical magnet that brings people of vastly different backgrounds together – that he loves. There are other artists here among his circle of friends; multimillionaires and retired diplomats; people whose ancestors built this community and others who were born in faraway parts of the world. Each has chosen Chester as home, for their own personal reasons. For Jose Valverde-Alcaide, it’s a very comfortable home indeed.