Córdoba prepares for leather artisan centenary
31/03/2010
The Spanish city of Córdoba is preparing to celebrate the centenary of the birth of its most famous leather artisan, Ángel López-Obrero, who died in 1992. He was born on April 20, 1910.
Originally a landscape and portrait painter, Ángel López-Obrero played a major role in recovering Córdoba’s leather artisan tradition when he opened, with his wife Mercedes, a leather workshop called Meryan (a combination of the beginning of both their names) in 1952.
The Córdoba street where the artist set up this workshop, Calleja de las Flores, quickly became famous for the attractive aroma of leather that emanated from Meryan. The artist felt he was re-establishing a true tradition of the town. Cordovan leather, as the name suggests, originated from the city.
In the workshop López-Obrero mostly produced individual objets d’art in finished leather, including wall panels, decorative boxes, chairs, jewellery cases, coats of arms for families, institutions or cities and so on. He used either cordovan leather, made from goat or calf skin that retains its natural colour, or guadamecí—a throwback to Córdoba’s Muslim past—which is tanned and coloured sheep or ram skin. Artisans in the Córdoba of the Caliphate, developed such a high level of skill in making soft leather that no one outside the Andalusian city seemed capable of achieving the same level of quality, which is how the term cordovan came into the language of leather.
Ángel López-Obrero received a series of awards from the city. In 1991, a local newspaper named him citizen of the year for his efforts to promote the traditional art and culture of Córdoba.
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