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May 31, 2010
Seville, 31 May 2010. Felipe Benjumea and Juan Antonio Carrillo Salcedo, President and Vice-President of the Focus-Abengoa Foundation respectively, together with Anabel Morillo, Director General of this institution, today led the presentation ceremony of the 22 awards that the Foundation presented for 2009. The ceremony took place in the Hospital de los Venerables in Seville, home of the Focus-Abengoa Foundation.
Over the years this ceremony has acquired special significance for the Foundation, which since 1982 has used the event to meet the prize winners in person and to better understand their expectations, projects and concerns. The Focus-Abengoa Foundation, aware of the importance to the future of society of educating today’s generations, and as part of its commitment to promoting quality education for everyone, allocated €259,000 to training, education and research actions in 2009, including 1,490 grants distributed among 1,125 families in Spain and Latin America.
At this year’s edition it presented the awards for end of studies, research assistance, professional improvement, best doctoral thesis on a Seville theme, painting and the Alfonso E. Pérez Sánchez research prize: “Velázquez and his Century”. This latter prize, the newest of the awards by the Foundation, aims to recognise innovative projects and scientific studies that contribute to our understanding and to better contextualising the different artistic representations that flourished in Spain during the 17th century. In its first edition, the award worth €24,000 Euros was presented to Marta Cacho Casal for her work entitled “Francisco Pacheco and his Book of Portraits”.
The ceremony was also attended by Emilio González Sáinz, winner of the Focus-Abengoa Painting Prize, for his work “Coastal landscape with tramp”, who also received an award of €24,000, and by Eva del Fraile Fiz and Wojciech Marek Lupa, who received runners-up awards of €6,000 for their works “Quien ríe el último” (Who laughs the last) and “La pintura para los daltonianos” (Painting for the colour-blind).
The end of studies awards went to Nerea Corral Azconobieta, Ankit Mahanty and Agustín Ramos Hurtado at obligatory secondary education level; to Marta López Garrido, Karim Paz Louali and Héctor Zaldívar Escudero for baccalaureate; to Guillermo Mellado Mosquera for non-university training, and to Silvia Bernal Pérez at degree level. The prizes at diploma level went to Mirari Uzuriaga Iraolagoitia and Carlos García Martín, while at the higher technical colleges and faculty level, Sonia Romo Madero and Inmaculada Vega Martín were the prize-winners.
Antonio Martín Hita, Antonio Jesús Millán Charcategui, María Montero de Espinosa and Michael Patrick Snook received the award for Professional Improvement.
The prize for best doctoral thesis on a Sevillian subject, worth €3,000, was presented to Antonio Fernández Navarro, for his study on “Reality and fables of Seville through the texts of the 19th century French travellers Laborde, Mérimée, Gautier and Davillier”.
Finally, Agustín García Santana received the award for research assistance for his work entitled “Control techniques applied to electricity generation in wave power plants with direct action using linear generators”.
In addition to these, in 2009 the Focus-Abengoa Foundation awarded a grant to Miguel Alberte Arteaga to extend his education abroad; two grants for language summer courses abroad to Carlos Martínez Zapico and Ángela Domínguez Hernández; and grants to Álvaro Barinaga Gómez, Silvia Bernal Pérez and Rosario de Fátima López Morgaz to continue their post-professional training studies.
About the Alfonso E. Pérez Sánchez International Research Prize: “Velázquez and his century”
The award is dedicated to assessing, detailing and continuing the work of the art historian Alfonso E. Pérez Sánchez, a leading researcher and educator whose work placed special emphasis on Italian and Spanish painting, and on studies about Velázquez and the art of that era. The Focus-Abengoa Foundation hopes that this award will encourage researchers and scientists to develop new initiatives that add value in areas such as art, history, culture, literature and the aesthetics of the century in which Velázquez lived and therefore contribute to better understanding the work of the Sevillian painter and the essence of his painting.
The deadline for submitting works for the 2nd edition of the Alfonso E. Pérez International Research Prize is 30 September 2010.
About the Focus-Abengoa Painting Prize
The Focus-Abengoa Painting Prize, which has a long tradition and a prestigious reputation, has been held for more than 26 years and has become one of the leading European and American awards in the art world. This international award reflects the Foundation’s commitment to contemporary art and promotes an exchange of artistic experiences beyond our frontiers, reflecting the concerns and wishes of the award’s founders. As shown in recent years, participation in this award strengthens the value of works by recognised painters and opens new channels for young talent, who need both financial and social support in their careers towards becoming professionals.
The deadline for entries for the 2010 Painting Prize is 20 September 2010.
About the Focus-Abengoa Foundation
The Focus-Abengoa Foundation was started in 1982 as a result of the cultural work begun in 1972 by Abengoa with the publication of the works Temas Sevillanos (Themes of Seville) and Iconografía de Sevilla (Iconography of Seville). A collection of documents, books and engravings on the Kingdom of Seville or by Sevillian authors was created during the same period. This initial cultural work showed Abengoa’s directors the importance of the company’s involvement in activities that directly benefit society, beyond its core technology work, which led to the creation of the Seville Cultural Fund Foundation.
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