Friends and family alerted him.
They suspected that the works they had seen hanging in several aesthetic clinics in the same chain were blatant copies of their recognizable landscapes with bright tones and synthetic lines, almost abstract.
That was more than 10 years ago.
Rosa Torres then initiated a very long litigation in defense of her art that highlights the scarce sensitivity of the Spanish justice with the defense of the intellectual property of the creators.
Towers across the landscape
Up to three times the case was shelved, on one occasion without practicing any diligence, and other so many times the reputed creator appealed, who did not cease in her fight for the recognition of her greatest heritage as a creator, her unmistakable style.
Finally, this year a ruling gave him the reason and this Wednesday, the tenacious Valencian painter has destroyed the copies that have caused her serious economic and prestige damage.
If authentic, the value of the set would amount to more than one million euros, according to the expert evidence.
It has been a
performance
of reparation and denunciation: Rosa Torres in the center of the Gothic room of the Center del Carme cultural space in Valencia, tearing, cutting and painting the canvases lying on the floor or leaning against the wall, while artists, friends surrounded her (like the one who has become a veteran police officer of the heritage brigade) and journalists.
An act of justice, although the sentence does not condemn the owner of the clinics.
He assured that he was unaware of the status of plagiarism when he acquired them in the Latin American country, a statement that the judge could not refute, so the presumption of innocence prevailed.
The ruling, however, affirms without any doubt that these are forgeries supposedly attributed to an artist named Agustín Jiménez, has insisted the other great protagonist of this story, Àlex Devís.
The artist's lawyer and advisor to the association that has supported her, the AVVAC (Artistes Visuals de València, Alacant i Castelló) has led the process to reach this bittersweet end, although happier than unhappy.
A court even issued an order to Interpol to locate the kidnapper but nothing else was ever heard from either the painter or Interpol.
Sparse in words but energetic in her movements, the artist has detailed that these plagiarisms "have introduced changes in the shapes and colors" that "destroy the aesthetic configuration of the work", which produces a "tasteless effect contrary to the proposals very thoughtful and measured aesthetics ”of his paintings.
He has valued the "ten-year struggle" and has pointed out that "it is quite possible that there are still some copies in private homes."
By telematic means, the lawyer has summarized some of the judicial obstacles: a judge treated the case as "documentary falsification" and not as a crime against intellectual property;
Nor was “an agreement to enter and register the clinics, nor to confiscate the works” and “four years passed without a single diligence being carried out.” During that time “the possibility of recovering very important evidence was being lost” that would have led to a “better result.” Devís has detailed a series of “nonsense” during the process and explained that the works could be recovered because the new owners of the chain, upon learning of the case, took them down and made them available judicial and the artist herself.
The chain's former owner acquired the works, but has not been convicted because the sentence considers it "possible" that "the defendant bought the paintings because he liked them without knowing or suspecting that they consisted of a plagiarism of Rosa Torres," because It is about "a sought-after and prestigious painter, but whose work is known in professional circles."
Rosa Torres has work in the collections of museums such as the IVAM and the Reina Sofía, among others.
She grew up as a creator in the Valencia of the late sixties and early seventies of last century, in the company of artists such as Equipo Crónica (Rafa Solbes and Manolo Valdés) or Jordi Teixidor.
The influences of geometric abstraction,
pop art
and impressionism are evident in his compositions, which have evolved towards an extreme synthesis of shapes and colors.