Days of Ire

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Image courtesy of La Virreina.

Helios Gómez (Seville, 1905–Barcelona, 1956) was an artist whose career was unique. He identified as Sevillian, Romany gypsy and Barcelonan, and participated in some of the most interesting European creative networks of his time. His work is a paradoxical nodule amidst apparently antithetical elements, emerging as both anachronistic and ahead of its time. He was at once a realist, a populist and avant-garde, a political activist and militant advocate of Romany identity, a libertarian communist and a practitioner of flamenco. The relevance of the work of Helios Gómez constitutes a unique case in the European artistic panorama of his time.

By claiming his Romany identity and seeking to give it a meaning that was not just cultural or ethnic, but specifically political, Gómez was decades ahead of many of the critical reflections that come to us now through the field of postcolonial studies, where he is recognized as a point of reference in the Romany context.

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