Frank Rebajes, the Artist Whose Work is in the Metropolitan, Forgotten by Málaga in a Drawer

Every weekend, he would stop by Tiffany's. But not for the cinematic jewelry store made famous by Audrey Hepburn on Fifth Avenue in New York, but rather for the equally legendary Torremolinos nightclub. However, beforehand, he took the opportunity to visit other gems, those exhibited by the artist Frank Rebajes on San Miguel Street. Pieces of modern and groundbreaking goldsmithing that peeked through the window display, among which two white cats strolled with steps that seemed choreographed without touching the valuable works. Brooches, pendants, and necklaces made of copper, which their creator had brought from that same Fifth Avenue where he also had his shop-studio frequented by distinguished clients such as Jackson Pollock and Peggy Guggenheim. One afternoon, Frank was smoking at the door of his shop when he invited a young man he had seen lurking around before. The visitor was broke and bought nothing, but the Dominican and Spanish-American artist and jeweler opened the doors of his refuge to him. That refuge he reached fleeing success and which few managed to penetrate. A gesture that has now been returned by that now grown-up young man, the artist and collector Diego Santos, who has curated at the Mucac La Coracha the exhibition 'From the Ovum to the Origin. A Journey in Reverse', which claims this forgotten artist who donated his most exclusive work to Malaga, which has been kept and forgotten in a drawer - read storage - for more than 35 years.

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"The City Council has a very important collection of his with more than 200 pieces, and somehow it should be valued because any museum in the world would give anything for that work since Frank is on par with top-level creators," Diego Santos claimed at the presentation this Tuesday of the first exhibition that, since the donation of Rebajes (1907, Puerto Plata-1990, Boston) to Malaga in 1988 and its custody in the collections of the Casa Natal de Picasso, is displayed in all its might with more than 60 sculptures from those he donated to the city. These collections are highlighted by sculptures from the 'Ovum' series, which in this exhibition are joined by the personal collection of the curator himself with jewels from the American stage of the Dominican designer and artist, son of Spanish immigrants. Hence the title 'From the Ovum to the Origin', as it starts from his last production that stayed in Malaga to make the journey back to his triumph as a jeweler and goldsmith on Fifth Avenue in New York.

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"He came from New York tired of success; looking for joy and another way of living," said Diego Santos, curator of the exhibition

"The piece that was hardest for me to find and buy is this antelope," Santos explained, pointing to a beautiful brooch shaped like a swift animal. What he did not disclose is how much he paid for this jewel with the Rebajes stamp, who had up to a hundred goldsmiths working for him in his Big Apple workshop, where he established himself as a pioneer in the use of copper in the US and in the introduction of avant-gardes in jewelry design. A revolution and success from which he ended up fleeing to seek refuge in Torremolinos. "He came from New York tired of success. He started in poverty, slept on cardboard, and was able to open a very small shop that quickly led to surplus and to Fifth Avenue with a spectacular clientele because his jewelry was the most modern and innovative in the city," highlighted Diego Santos, who added that he sold the business to his partner and "came to Torremolinos looking for joy and another way of living, opened his shop and turned his workshop on the third floor of his building into a temple, a secret space that very few accessed."

His most exclusive work, in Malaga

It was in that studio that smelled of "salt and rusted metal" where he illuminated for several decades his most complex and decisive work, the sculptures of the 'Ovum' series. "In New York, the simple becomes essential and his jewels speak with their own voice inspired by cubism, surrealism, or dadaism, while in the Torremolinos era emerges the most intimate and philosophical Rebajes with his most enigmatic work inspired by the Moebius strip, without beginning or end, from white to black or yin and yang as references," explained the curator, highlighting that each sculpture becomes a "labyrinth," a "tactile poem, a meditation in the form of metal." A journey through the universe of the artist that the exhibition completes with a recreation of a room from the Torremolinos of the 70s and nine watercolors painted by Diego Santos inspired by the works from his own collection.

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Santos emphasized that the groundbreaking work of Frank Rebajes is part of the collection of the Metropolitan (MET) and Brooklyn museums in New York, and highlighted in the presence of the mayor of Malaga, Francisco de la Torre, and the director of the Public Agency for the Management of the Casa Natal de Pablo Ruiz Picasso, Luis Lafuente, that the City Council custodies his most exclusive and differential work, so "I think it should be displayed" permanently, while recalling an old project of his along with gallery owner Tecla Lumbreras: "Hopefully in Malaga a museum of relaxation would be created to tell that the Costa del Sol was a pioneer in tourism in this country and Rebajes, Hemingway, Cocteau, and Ana de Pombo must be part of that museum and that is why it is so important to recover it."

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With his message to the audience, Santos recalled that Frank Rebajes was member 153 of the Ateneo de Malaga and that, two years before his tragic death, he donated his work to Torremolinos, which at that time still belonged to Malaga, although the coastal town was about to earn the title of village. And without intending to, he ended up recounting the sad farewell of the sculptor, jeweler, and goldsmith. "I'm not telling the end because his wife (Pauline Schwartz) died in '89, after five years sick with Alzheimer's. Frank did not overcome the loss and committed suicide in '90 after giving a lecture at MIT in Boston," he remembered, while recounting that, even to say goodbye, he was original and avant-garde. "His friends Diego Moya and Enrique Brinkmann told me that he brought the poison from Malaga inside a ring," he said about the cyanide he used to oxidize his sculptures and that he also used to end his life. "Death is just another part of life and it was his way out, but here we have his work alive and full of light," the curator concluded about this necessary resurrection of a forgotten artist whose work remains radically modern 35 years after his death.