José Luján Pérez

The sculptor José Luján Pérez is, without a doubt, the artist from Guía with the greatest projection and lustre, this is due not only to the great quality of his works, but also because of his extensive work. He was born in Guía on 9th May 1756 and died there in 1815. Although he also worked as an architect, sculpture was his main forte, and he was the Canary Island's most important image-maker. From the age of nine he began to develop a great facility for sculpture, with precision and cleanliness, and also a great knowledge of human anatomy and a great capacity for moulding forms and expressions.

He spent most of his life in the city of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, where he moved when he was very young. It was here that he produced most of his work, both sculptural and architectural. His artistic career began with painting, specifically in the workshop of Cristóbal Afonso, and in 1775 he began with sculpture, on this occasion under the tutelage of the artist Jerónimo de San Guillermo, who worked with Baroque patterns, a style that Luján himself would adopt.

After entering the Academy of Drawing of the Royal Economic Society of Friends of the Country, he came into contact with architecture, his work being of a neoclassical nature. In this case his teacher was Diego Nicolás Eduardo.

However, it is in the field of sculpture that he is particularly outstanding, including the Christ Crucified in the Chapter House of the Cathedral of Santa Ana in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, the Christ of the True Cross in the church of San Agustín in the Vegueta district of the same city, as well as the Christ tied to the Column in the parish church of Santa María de Guía and his Santo domingo in the church of Puerto de la Cruz in Tenerife.

Luján Pérez is a sculptor of great imagination, which gives his work a very personal character, as can be seen, for example, in the serenity of his images of crucified chrysots.

Of the rest of his work in the church of his native town, we can highlight the Dolorosa, the Virgen de Las Mercedes, carved in 1802, with its white robe, characteristic of the order of the redemption of captives, which is tight around the waist and with a mantle of numerous folds that convey the sensation of being moved by the wind.

The images are scattered throughout the different municipalities of the archipelago, and a large number of altarpieces have been lost, either due to fire or because they were made of wood. Fortunately, the one in the parish church of Guía (whose woodwork was polychromed by his collaborator Ossabarray) and one in the church of San Francisco de Asís in the capital of Gran Canaria have survived.

In terms of architectural work, the most important of his works was in the cathedral of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria after the death of his master Diego Nicolás Eduardo, whom he replaced: the project for the frontispiece, the towers of the façade and the choir. The works of this artist also include the now disappeared Verdugo Bridge over the Guiniguada Ravine and the cemeteries of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and San Roque in Guía.