“Art: turning the truth into a lie, so that it does not cease to be true.” Jusep Torres Campalans

In 1958, an exhibition by a newly discovered artist of Catalan origin opened at the Excelsior gallery in Mexico City: Jusep Torres Campalans. Born in 1886 and died in 1957, Campalans was described as a tall, strong, hard-looking man with a tough character and a devotion to his Spanish Catholicism. Originally from the province of Lérida, when he reaches adulthood, he moves to Paris where he formed friendships with celebrated artists such as Pablo Picasso and Jacques Braques, and even rivalries with Juan Gris, his competitor for the third place of the most reknown cubist.

In 1914, after 8 years of intense artistic production, and before the outbreak of the Spanish civil war, Campalans decided to go into exile in the mountain ranges of Chiapas, Mexico, where he would spend the rest of his life. His last contact with the artistic world of Europe is a brief interview with Max Aub, a Spanish writer based in Mexico, whom he meets by chance in a bookstore in San Cristobal de las Casas. Aub, fascinated by his story, took on the task of gathering as much information as possible about Campalans' life. Paintings, letters, catalogues, brochures, diaries, sketches and even a photograph of the artist's youth posing with Picasso, Aub put together an entire archive of his life, which he published a book and secured an exhibition in Mexico.

The story of his incredible life and the mystery of how a highly talented artist could go unnoticed was a magical formula that sparked the public's fascination with Campalans. The exhibition was awarded front-page notices in local newspapers and textual applause from famous critics of the time. Everyone wanted to know the one who was pointed out, even by Picasso himself, as the true father of Cubism.

Except it was all a lie.

Campalans was a character invented by Max Aub himself, who, colluding with a series of artists, gallery owners and writers, created the exceptional life of Jusep Torres Campalans. The reason? A rather elaborate joke aimed at the art world. Shortly after the exhibition, and the attention received towards the work of the false artist, the writer revealed the truth about his origin.

The works, photographs and the artist's personal diary had been created by the writer, and under his direction, the other participants in the farce created letters, reviews, invitations, biographies, catalogs and even anecdotes about how they met the non-existent artist. The amount of information about his life was such that no one dared to question his existence, not even the media. Pablo Picasso himself was an enthusiastic participant in the scam, pointing out a supposed friendship, and the famous Mexican writer, Carlos Fuentes, participated in the creation of pamphlets about the artist.

The feat of the lie was so great that 4 years later, in 1962, the Brodley Gallery in New York decided to include the false artist in a group exhibition with the text “Jusep Torres Campalans (…) Invention of Max Aub”. And in more recent years, 2003, the Spanish Reina Sofía museum remembered the fictional character as a kind of "deserved tribute to the humorous wit and narrative talent of Max Aub", exhibiting his fake works along with pieces by great artists such as Amadeo Modigliani, Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Piet Mondrian, among others.

Currently, the case of Torres Campalans is studied by the literature branch as a literary feat. Max Aub's system for developing a complete person who had, not only a written biography, but also his own thoughts (recorded in a diary called “the green notebook”), works, evidence of his existence and a history that is related to the of real people and events, make Jusep Torres Campalans a person on the border of being real, who the only thing missing to be alive was the ability to breathe.

Sources: Miguel de Cervantes Virtual Library, Art History and Reina Sofía Museum.