Page 139 - 2022 Symposium exhibition

The history of this Association has its origins in that group of watercolourists who in 1945 organized the first National Watercolour
Exhibition held in Bilbao, whose success encouraged them to create a Basque Association of Watercolourists which over the course of 77
years has worked with great enthusiasm for giving watercolour the place it deserves in the field of painting. Among those who are
passionate about watercolour, I would like to highlight Juan de Arostegi y Barbier, the first president of the Association, who put all his
energy so that this project could came off and could become the dynamic Association that it is today.
Throughout these years, uninterruptedly, the Association has worked by and for watercolour, trying to make it a valid, free and creative
artistic medium, developing important educational work in its workshops where generations of watercolourists have been trained,
organizing contests and master classes with watercolour masters, attending national and international meetings and organizing more than
250 exhibitions at a local, national and international level that have shown the high level that watercolour has in the Basque country. The
watercolors that we show here prove it.
The passion for the watercolour technique brings us together and drives us to work on new challenges, to look for new formulas that make
our Association a valid and functional tool in a society in continuous change.

Isabel Sanjuan
EAE/AVA President