Daniel Garbade

Daniel Garbade (born 1957) is a Spanish painter, illustrator, art director, property master and publisher.

Born in Switzerland from Swiss-Cuban origins, Garbade is the grand-nephew of Adrien Lachenal, great-grandchild of Cuban sculptor Fernando Heydrich, grandson of Theodore Garbade and cousin of sculptor Juan Esnard Heydrich.

Since 1979, Garbade has worked as a production manager and later as Property master for advertising and feature films at Condor Films, Barney, Tardio & Melsky, Warner Bros, TF1 and The Ladd Company.

Garbade as had a hand in films such as "Five days one summe r" by Fred Zinnemann and "Espion leve to i" by Yves Boisset.

An avid fighter for the rights of homosexuals, he worked for the American Foundation for AIDS Research (AmfAR) and the in Madrid, where he illustrated texts in various writings such as Orientaciones.

In the book Cosas de casados, which was later turned into an exhibition, he published his drawings on the subject of homosexuality in Art together with David Hockney and Tom of Finland.

In 2022, Garbade was invited by the Embassy of Switzerland in India to give a lecture on The Queer in Art and Real Life with Curator Dr.Alka Pande, Saurabh Kirpal, Advocate and LGBTQ+ activist and Vivek Raj Anand, CEO of Humsafar Trust.

Garbade lived in Spain from 1983 to 2011, then taking residence in his hometown Zürich, to exhibit at the Peyer Fine Art Gallery in Zürich.

Garbade has been a source of inspiration for intercultural cooperation between Switzerland and Spain since 1983.

He brought the first Swiss gallery to the ARCO Art fair in 1985, exhibiting artists like Pablo Runyan or Jorge Arxe.

In 1987, he took part in the publication of poems as co-founder of the Signos Magazine.

On behalf of the Dadaists of the Cabaret Voltaire in Zürich, he designed the gravestone of Mikhail Bakunin at the Bremgarten cemetery, Berne.

The City of Toledo in Spain invited Garbade to exhibit his sculptures at the Oratorio de San Felipe Neri in 2022.

Garbade has close ties to South America and Cuba through his family: Garbade's grandmother, Aída, was from Matanzas.

Mexico showed his works at the National Museum of Tequila in Jarisco (2021), at the  Museum of the Agave Landscape and Mining (2022) and at the Galerie Kin (1993) in Mexico City.

In 2021, Garbade showed his works in the exhibition dedicated to the Bicentennial of the Independence of Peru at the Casa Museo Mario Vargas Llosa in Arequipa (2021).

In May 2022, The Ludwig Foundation of Cuba invited the artist to present his works about his origins in Cuba in its Gallery in Havana and in the Visual Arts Center of Matanzas, the Pedro Esquerré Gallery, in two parallel exhibitions.

He co-operated with Werner Bischof and John Armleder at the Museo Reina Sofia, Circulo de Bellas Artes and other galleries in the Swiss weeks of Madrid in 1988.

In 1989, he helped François Lachenal for the exhibition du Greco a Goya, a homage to the works of art from the Museo del Prado saved during the Spanish Civil War in Geneva.

His grandfather Paul Lachenal was involved in the safeguard of the paintings as delegate of the International Committee.

His image of the naked Pope Benedict XVI attracted attention in 2006 and was removed from his exhibition at the request of the Swiss government.

His wedding (2006) was the first same-sex marriage in Mascaraque, Castilla–La Mancha, Spain

Garbade's exhibition Côctel, with contributions from writers such as Rafael Alberti, Vicente Molina Foix, José Saramago,, Jesús Ferrero and Leopoldo Alas, discusses tolerance in the Convent of San Ildefonso (Toledo).

The exhibition was supported by the Vice-President of UNESCO and the Swiss Government.

In 2012 he was invited to the exhibitions Hispano-Suizo in Zürich, and in 2014 to Hispano -Suizo Madrid.

As curator, he conducted the exhibition Desayuno para Inmigrantes on the immigration of Swiss artists in Spain.

In 2016 he returned to Spain, living in Mascaraque, Castilla–La Mancha and gained the Spanish Citizenship in 2023.

Garbade is one of Spanish expressionists, who turned to Pop art during the Movida madrileña.

His stroke is personal and minimalistic.

Writer Alvaro Pombo described Garbade's work by coining the term "garbatear".

Garbade's portraits are melancholy yet humorous and aim to show mankind at its core.

Nobel Prize winner José Saramago once said, "Garbade shows us humanity where it unfolds" His most well-known portraits include those of Nancy Cunard, King Juan Carlos I, Rodriguez Zapatero, Kofi Annan and Pedro Almodovar.