Art in Altea

1. How a fishing town became an artists’ colony

The story begins in the 1950s and 60s, when the light, the cheap houses and the distance from the cities brought the first painters to the old town. What made Altea different from other Mediterranean discoveries is that they stayed — and that Spanish, German, Dutch and Scandinavian artists settled side by side.

By the 1970s the town had a reputation. The whitewashed lanes below the church filled with studios; galleries followed; and in time the presence of artists became part of how Altea saw itself. The 2000s brought a faculty of fine arts, which anchored the tradition in something more durable than a scene.

2. Names that shaped the place

Naming individuals is difficult and unfair in equal measure — any list leaves someone out. What can be said is that the town’s reputation was built by a mixture: Spanish painters who came from Valencia and Madrid, and northern Europeans who arrived for a season and stayed for a life.

Several of them ran their own galleries, taught, or opened their studios to visitors. Some are commemorated in street names and plaques; others are remembered only by those who knew them.

This page names no living artists and rates none. Both would require consent, and the judgement is not ours to make.

3. Training: the Faculty of Fine Arts

The Universidad Miguel Hernández runs its Facultad de Bellas Artes in Altea — the reason a town of this size has a steady population of art students.

• Degrees in fine arts and related fields
• Exhibitions and end-of-year shows open to the public
• Workshops and lectures, some of them open to residents

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4. Exhibiting and performing

• Palau d’Altea — the town’s concert and theatre venue, with a programme through the season
• Casa de Cultura — municipal exhibitions, talks and courses
• Centre Cultural Juvenil — youth centre with workshops and rehearsal space
• Galleries in the old town — small, numerous and changeable; many open only in the afternoon and evening
• Studios — some open by arrangement; the craft market on summer evenings is the easiest way to meet the people behind them

Current programmes are announced by the municipality and in the local press. Media

5. A directory of artists

There is no complete public list of artists working in Altea, and this page does not attempt one. Anyone looking for a particular studio will get further through the galleries, the faculty or the craft market than through any directory.

If you work here and would like to be listed, write to us — with your consent we will add a plain entry: name, discipline, and a link to your own site.

6. Sources

This account draws on the municipality’s own publications, the university’s pages and the local press. Where dates are uncertain they are given as approximate.

The colony’s history has not been written up in one place, and much of it survives as recollection rather than record. Corrections and additions are welcome.