Manuel Lledías Gómez (1897-1970) Engraving “Santillana del Mar” 1964
13 in. x 15 in.

Manuel Lledías Gómez was a Photographer, painter and engraver.

Although as a child he showed a clear inclination for drawing, his father, a photographer by profession, because his family’s economic situation not allowing him to study at the Academy of Fine Arts of Santander, at the age of sixteen he became his father’s assistant in the photographic studio he set up in Bilbao; but in the time that remained, he continued to draw. He moved to Valencia to fulfill the military service and it was there where he began a lasting friendship with the painter Ismael Blat, with whom he was trained in the capture “sorollista” of nature.

In 1925 he shared a studio in Madrid with the famous painter and photographer, Leony, from whom he learned the technique of etching. He shared his work as a photographer with attending painting classes at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando. As photographers, Lledías and Leony portrayed the visitors of the Solares spa and the famous personalities of Santander. There were some portraits in shades of the painter Ricardo Bernardo of great compositional beauty.

During the years that he lived in Cartes until his death in 1970 he painted with his brush and in etchings the Cantabrian corners that he loved. In 1960 he recognized having painted more than a thousand paintings; He exhibited at the Ateneo de Santander, Caja Cantabria, Galería Sur and in various galleries in La Coruña, Oviedo and Bilbao. In 1984 the public school of Cartes was baptized with the name of the artist and in 1997 the Regional Government of Cantabria paid tribute to him on the centenary of his birth.