If there is one person who knows deeply
and well the cultural and artistic evolution of the Pitiusas
Islands in the past three decades, it is Gastão Heberle.
Gastão, as he is known by most of
the Island’s residents, is a writer and a language and
literature professor. Born in the South of Brazil in the middle
of the 1940s, he has spent more then half his live on Eivissa.
He and his wife Jussara have known the Islands
since the very early 1970s and in 1976 they established their
house in Sant Josép, where they live and work most
of the year, whenever they are not away on one of their frequent
trips.
In 1979 he published his first book of tales
and short histories about Eivissa, its people, culture and
traditions. “Los trabajos y los dias” was written
with his particular sense of humour and irony and also with
his own metaphors and personal points of view. Jussara illustrated
it with exquisite drawings.
The book became a success and the edition
was soon sold out. He repeated the experience with a new book
in 1983, “Boira” (Fog), also written following the
same style and again illustrated by the same exquisite hands.
This book was also a success, it’s been translated into
German, and there have been several editions of it already.
Gastão is always working on some new ideas involved
with his literary career, so expect to see some of his new
works soon.
Apart from his creative work as a writer,
Gastão is probably far better known as an Art-gallery
manager, as one of the best “Plastic Arts experts”
and “merchant” of the Islands. It is a job he has
been doing officially since 1978, when he opened the Gallery
“Sargantana” (“Lizard” in Ibicenco) in
the village of Sant Josép, just by the side of the
church.
At the beginning, the gallery was exclusively
dedicated to Jussara’s paintings: oil-paintings, water-colours,
drawings and postcards (here we have to say that this gallery
is quite small, the smallest in size on the Island, in contrast
with the high artistic quality of its exhibitions). But soon,
little by little, some of the best Ibicenco and resident artists
started to exhibit in it, with exclusive selections of their
material.
Gastão opened “Gallery Can Berri”
in the little village of Sant Agustí, also by the side
of its church. He spends his time between the two galleries,
during the day in Sant José and from 8.30pm in Sant
Agustí, where he is visited by a big number of artists,
customers, art-lovers and friends.
At present there is a good collection of
art-pieces in both of them. We can admire paintings by Jussara,
also by V. Ferrer Guasch, Toni Pomar (Weekly Edition 063,
Artists on Ibiza Fifteen, Saturday 11th May 2002), V. Boberman,
Mario Stafforini (Weekly Edition 047 Artists on Ibiza Seven,
Saturday 19th January 2002), Sara Nechamkin (Weekly Edition
065 Artists on Ibiza Sixteen, Saturday 25th May 2002), Adrian
Rosa (Weekly Edition 055 Artists on Ibiza Eleven, Saturday
16th March 2002) and Vicent Calbet (Weekly Edition 045 Artists
on Ibiza Six, Saturday 5th January 2002) among others. Also
sculptures by Edilson Diniz, Toni Hormigo (Weekly Edition
035 Artists on Ibiza One, Saturday 27th October 2001) Pedro
J Hormigo together with Julio Bauzá (Weekly Edition
041 Artists on Ibiza Four, Saturday 8th December 2001), Angelina
Ribas and some other new discoveries.
Running his galleries, Gastão has
survived year after year in this difficult business (these
galleries are at present the ones being opened without interruptions,
only closing for their trips in the winter season) with discretion,
elegance and class, meeting the most relevant artists and
interesting people, making friends from all over the World.
I bet if one day he decides to write a book
about the experiences and the people that he met in his galleries,
it will be a big success and a book that will become a classic,
necessary to learn and understand the cultural and artistic
modern history of Eivissa-Formentera.
But it is almost impossible to write about
Gastão and his career as a writer and Art-merchant
without speaking about his wife Jussara. Both together form
a solid tandem, the ideal complement for a perfect team, two
individual souls pedalling together through life in deep communion
with the Art and the sensitivity.
Jussara de Oliveira was born in Porto Alegre,
Brazil. Jussara means coco-nut-palm tree in the Indian language
Tupi-Guarani from where she comes. She started painting when
she was very young; encouraged by her parents who saw she
had a passion for it. At the age of fifteen she already knew
what she enjoyed best doing and what she wanted to do for
her living. She studied for about two years at Art School
in Brazil and later, with the money from a fellowship, she
visited Moscow, where she lived for a few years, then France,
Sweden, Germany, Portugal and Madrid, before Eivissa.
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Jussara de Oliveira Heberle
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Jussara and Gastão got married in 1969, or it
could have been 1968. She doesn’t remember very
well, because they married by papers, when Gastão
was in Moscow and she was in Brazil.
Jussara keeps good memories of all
those years living in different places. From Moscow
she remembers with pleasant nostalgia the extraordinary
ballet, the museums, and the colourful tulips of the
Kremlin and Red Square in the summer... From Paris,
when she was studying in the “Sorbona University”.
While Gastão was passing his degrees to get his
title as Language and Literature professor, she was
also working in a perfume shop or as a baby sitter...
So many memories from so many places...
And then they arrived in Eivissa,
of which they had already heard a lot. They lived among
young artists and advanced intellectual circles, first
for two or three years as tourists. Then they couldn’t
resist any longer the call of the magic of the Island.
Like the singing of the mermaids to Ulysses, it tied
them to Eivissa, hopefully for the rest of their life,
though they are both very cosmopolitan and big travellers
and they keep on with their international trips every
winter.
They both soon rooted deeply into
this Island, into its environment and culture, its people
and landscapes, as we can see in Jussara’s paintings
and Gastão’s tales. Since then, the life
motive of Jussara’s paintings has been Eivissa,
its landscapes, trees, nature and people, especially
the “Dona Pagessa” (the local peasant women,
dressed in ancestral costume). Nowadays, there’s
a whole generation of young people who - when they see
one of our “grannies” dressed up in our traditional
costume - call: “Look! There’s a “Jussara!”.”
So deep and real is the communion between her Art and
our reality.
Of her paintings, the experts say:
“They show us the interior Eivissa, transfigured
in a poetical interpretation, full of grace, magic and
love”.
“Her favourite subject is the
local peasant woman, for its magic and mystery, for
its sober elegance and for all that she means to the
local culture”.
“We are not talking about the
classical folklore picture, but the spirit, the real
essence of Eivissa”.
Hopefully, we will be able to write
again about Jussara and her new exhibition, on which
task she is one hundred percent concentrated at the
moment. Then, we will also show her very intensive and
cosmopolitan curriculum.
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All Painting by Jussara de Oliveira
Heberle
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A Selection of Black & White Postcards
from the work of Jussara de Oliveira Heberle
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Gastão Heberle and the front
cover of the German Version of his book “Erzählungen
aus Ibiza”
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Jussara de Oliveira Heberle in front
of one of her Paintings
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All Pictures Courtesy
of Gastão Heberle
Exhibitions for this Summer at the Gallery
“Can Berri” in Sant Agustí, Eivissa
From the 6th to the 30th July: Paintings
by Hagen Voss.
From the 2nd to the 30th August: Sculptures
by Toni Hormigo.
From the 31st August to the 12th September:
Paintings by Sarah Nechamkin.
From the 17th to the 30th September: Paintings
by Jussara de Oliveira Heberle.
José P Ribas
josepribas@liveibiza.com
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