THE exhibition Robert Graves, a Poet's Life, which opens at Ses Voltes in the Palma's Parc de la Mar this evening, will include photographs from the family and professional world of the man considered one of the greatest English-languge authors and poets of the 20th century Details of the exhibition, which will be open until the end of June, were presented yesterday by Damiá Pons, the Balearic minister of culture; Cesar Antonio Molina, director of the Círculo de Bellas Artes; the author's son William Graves; the president of the Grup Serra, Pere A Serra; the director of the Sa Nostra Foundation Miquel Alenyá, and Francesc Salas, the Mayor of Deya, where Graves lived and where he is buried. Damiá Pons explained that Graves lived in Majorca for many years, and that he transmitted the Majorcan landscape into many of his works, which have a universal category. The exhibition will include photographs of the author by leading international photographers and also family photographs, original manuscripts and first editions and correspondence with luminaries such as T S Elliot, Gertrude Stein, Ramon J Sender or e e cummings. Documents include his birth certificate, and passport.
The exhibition has already been seen in Madrid, at the Círculo de Bellas Artes, and, said Pons, is more complete than the exhibition on Graves held in La Lonja in 1995.
Aurora Sotelo, the curator, said that the objective of the exhibition was to present Robert Graves as a poet, as this facet of his work is little known in Spain. William Graves recalled that his father and family were on the first commercial flight which landed at Son Bonet airfield at the end of World War II and said that his father felt Majorcan and of Deya.
The exhibition will be complemented by a series of poetry readings organised by Antoni Rigo.
It can be visited Tuesdays to Sundays from 10am to 5.45pm. Ses Voltes also has a permanent collection of paintings.