The dancer and painter Micaela Flores Amaya, known as La Chunga, legend of flamenco tablaos in the 60s, friend of great writers and artists of the 20th century, naive genre painter and actress in several films, has died at the age of 86. The news has been confirmed by his son to the television program And now, Sonsoles this Friday.
The artist was sick with cancer diagnosed in 2011 and lived in a residence. Her son, Luis Gonzalvo, has confirmed that the dancer had been “in and out of the hospital” for days.
Born in Marseille in 1938 to a gypsy family, Andalusian immigrants to France, she began dancing in the Raval clubs of Barcelona, a city to which she had moved when she was still a baby. One of the characteristics of her dance was to do it barefoot. She was discovered by the painter Francisco Rebés, for whom she worked as a model, who helped her gain fame as a dancer and encouraged her to develop her painting style. “With dancing I got out of poverty,” he said in an interview with Vanity Fair magazine in 2018, on the occasion of an exhibition of his work at the Cock bar in Madrid. The artist explained that it was during breaks from the long hours of thinking that she picked up the brushes and realized that she could express herself that way. His first exhibition took place at the Maruani gallery in Paris in 1964, when he was only 16 years old. When he stopped dancing, in the 90s, he dedicated himself fully to painting.
She was a friend of writers such as Blas de Otero, Rafael Alberti, José Manuel Caballero Bonald and León Felipe and of painters such as Picasso, to whom she was introduced by Luis Miguel Dominguín, Miró, Guinovart and Dalí. Picasso defined her art as “luminous naïve” and said of her: “It took me 70 years to do what this little girl does.” From her meeting with Dalí came a painting that he made her make by soaking her feet in oil and dancing on the canvas.
She also tried her hand at acting, in some cases thanks to the mediation of her friend, actress Ava Gardner, who lived in Spain. La Chunga participated in the film by José María Forqué With your back to the door (1959), last summer (1961) de Juan Bosch, race law (1969) by José Luis Gonzalvo and Nosferatu in Venice (1988) by Augusto Caminito, starring Klaus Kinski.
She married one of these directors, José Luis Gonzalvo, in 1966, had three children, and separated in 1978.
Source: www.eldiario.es
