Famous for his portraits of the late Don Dunstan, one is hanging in Dunstan Playhouse, Adelaide Festival Centre. Salvador Loreto is a full-blooded Spanish gypsy born in Algeciras, Spain to family whose tradition is flamenco and bullfighting.A former bullfighter, he gave away this career after being badly gored by a bull at the age of 15 years.He had started painting and drawing at a very early age
, but when his bullfighting career ended, he turned to singing and painting which became his greatest love and passion.Due to discrimination against gypsies in Franco’s Spain, Loreto never received a formal education however he was able to study in various art schools in Algeciras, Madrid and Bilbao. He later began to exhibit as a solo artist. On his arrival in Australia in 1966, he discovered a new landscape and people and a freedom of expression, which he gladly embraced. However, his Spanish gypsy, cultural roots have remained a reference point for his painting.His works demonstrate his extraordinary talent for expressing himself in different styles, always with that touch of surrealism which good Spanish artists are unable to resist. In Adelaide, one of the highlights of his career was to twice have the privilege of painting the authorised portraits of the late Don Dunstan, former Premier of South Australia. Dunstan considered Loreto a pure and great artist whose work was relevant to everyday life and happily agreed to sit for him. These paintings now have great historical significance in South Australia. During his long and varied career Loreto has exhibited in Europe and Japan and Singapore. In Australia - in Perth, Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide. Private collections can be found in Australia (New Norcia and Perth-Western Australia, Sydney, Adelaide, Melbourne, Tasmania) Paris, Switzerland, Nagoya-Japan and Spain. Available for commissions and exhibitions – for more information please contact the artist.
