Retratos furtivos (Furtive Portraits)

Everything one should know about this book is explained by its author, Luis Seoane (Buenos Aires, 1910 – A Coruña, 1979), in a charming text that opens with the following words: “These are, without a doubt, furtive portraits, made in hiding, with discretion, in order to not alarm the victim, stealing their facial features with my memory to reproduce them into line drawings.

“After reproducing the stolen face, one must analyse it, place it in its context, in the environment the author presumes it inhabits, attempting to interpret its concerns, to find its moral flaws and virtues, and define them in a brief sentence. One must diagnose the victim, like a doctor usually does with their patients.”

This edition, which preserves the format of the original drawings, collects the three books Seoane published in Argentina (Furtive Portraits, Buenos Aires, 1968; Other Furtive Portraits, Buenos Aires, 1969) and Galicia (Cut-throat Portraits, A Coruña 1968). There are a total of 250 line drawings created in public spaces of various cities: Rome, New York, Madrid, Valencia, A Coruña, etc., in which the author has added a line of text, either in Spanish or Galician. The book’s final pages include a transcription and a translation of all the manuscript texts.