The young artist in his studio.

Borges always considered himself a sculptor, and the streets and plazas of Santa Cruz are dotted with his bronzes, but he also excelled in drawing,watercolors, painting and certainly etching, as these prints testify. They whole of Borges' artistic production reflects his reverence for the masters, especially Albrecht Dürer, Rembrandt and Goya, but also Leonardo, Velázquez and Michelangelo. Even a passing glance at the prints in this collection reveals the homage he pays to these masters, especially the first three. But Borges was also profoundly influenced by what one Spanish critic has called "the delirium of the epoch," the irruption of the first distinctly 20th- century voices: Breton, Eluard, Duchamp, Picasso, Isadora Duncan...

Borges and his brother, Miguel, before their
exile in Venezuela after the Spanish War.

Years of Artwork and Exile
One of the consummate draftsmen of his time, Borges used his prodigious, seemingly effortless drawing ability to convert familiar themes--mythology, superstition and witchcraft, Christian iconography--into personal statements on the human condition: existential angst, cosmic and mundane indignation, mourning for the loss of loved ones... Soon after Franco's fascist forces defeated the democratically-elected government in the Spanish Civil War, Borges joined the ranks of his thousands of liberal countrymen in exile. He, along with his brother, Miguel, and their families, arrived in Venezuela in December, 1941. He did not return to his home country until 1968.

Honors were not long in coming. In 1972 he was made a member of the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Miguel Arcángel in Santa Cruz. The following year he was accorded an anthological exhibition in the exhibit hall of the Cabildo Insular (regional government) of Tenerife. His brother Miguel and his friend, Domingo Pérez Minik wrote the text for the catalog. Both Borges and his brother were subject of a popular homage in 1986, organized by a Santa Cruz citizens' organization.

The artist and his wife, Cristina.

The Final Years
After his wife's death in 1975, Borges was afflicted by a melancholy which lasted till his death 25 years later. During this time he destroyed an important part of his work. Today Borges is best known for his bronze sculpture, Fecundidad (Fecundity), a familiar site to all the people of Santa Cruz in the García Sanabria Park, with its central fountain and hand extended to the passers by.

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