A hundred years ago, a young Pamplona was able to participate in the most prestigious art exhibition in the world: It was at the Grand Salon in Paris. The young man was Javier Ciga and the work awarded in the Elizondo Market, presented in the contest under the name of Paysans Basques.

This painting, together with more than twenty works carried out during his stay in Paris, is exhibited in the Condestable Palace of Pamplona, in an exhibition organized by the Ciga Foundation and the City Hall. In addition to the landscapes of the Seine that have an impressionist touch, we can see people and places of the Basque Country that the artist never forgot... and the beautiful portrait of his wife Eulalia, who was brought by his daughter Gurutze: “If you don’t bring your mother, neither does your daughter go to the opening.”

She had left in Paris thanks to Ciga Nicolás Urdampilleta, an American woman. They met in 1909, when Pamplona won the Sanfermin poster competition. Seeing the nice image of the lockdown, he decided to become his protector.

However, at the outbreak of the First World War, Ciga had to return home. What a change for an artist! : leave the world capital of art to return to Pamplona surrounded by walls. You have to read them and have fun announcing the arrival of the Ciga in the words of some journalists of the time. Witness of The Navarro Thought: “One day she came to her people, to Navarra, mother of Euskal Herria, and then she saw that she was much more attractive than bohemian.”

It was not the only war the painter had marked, as the one in Spain had left him a more serious wound. Member of the PNV, Ciga was a councillor of Pamplona in the twenties, twice. (The representatives of the City Hall forgot the data in small speeches in Spanish). The fact is, in 1937, he was arrested, tortured and taken away all his property. I could take him out of jail and make him as his friend José Arrúe: “Two years in jail and now to the street, up the sky and down the earth. Everything has disappeared, including my work. To porra art, critics and exhibitions.” However, the Ciga advanced, perhaps because it had no other choice. From then on, he became the teacher and the great retratist of the teachers until his death in 1960. Without leaving Pamplona, but remembering the memories of Paris, especially from 100 years ago, I loved those humble peasants of Baztan when he knew that they would enter the history of art.