Andrés Vázquez de Sola (San Roque, Cádiz, 1927) is a sketch artist, journalist and painter. He was born into a right-wing family that believed in law and order. He studied in La Línea de la Concepción and at the Seminary of Sacromonte (Granada), which he soon left. Then he began to work on the newspaper Patria, and from 1951 he was clandestinely active in the Communist Party of Spain (PCE). He suffered acts of censorship, dismissals and deportations to other regions of the country, and left for Madrid, where he worked on Patria as a permanent contributor. The repression continued until he left that newspaper and Televisión Española, where he presented the programme La noche del sábado (Saturday Night) and drew caricatures of the participants in front of the cameras. In 1959 he walked to Paris. There he had many difficulties and sometimes had to sleep under the bridges of the Seine, until he published La Gran Corrida Franquista in the satirical newspaper Le Canard Enchainé. It was so successful that the newspaper had to print a million copies. For thirty years he worked as a journalist at Le Canard, Le Monde, Le Monde Diplomatique and L’Humanité, among others. He also published books such as Historia triste de un triste perro (1968) and La Franquísima Gracia (1970). He organised personal and collective exhibitions, and appeared on radio and television programmes. In Spain, he contributed to Mundo Obrero, Interviú and El Cocodrilo, among others, and his cartoons critical of Felipe González and NATO led him into the dock. In 1972, he received the Palma d’Oro in Bordighera (Italy) and, in 1974, the Nasreddin Hoca in Turkey. He is a coherent, brave, anti-establishment, committed, honest man with biting, satirical and deeply funny ideals that have always discomforted those in power. A master cartoonist and anti-Francoist, he has always fought for freedom of expression. He is also an exceptional artist and has created large-format paintings full of audacity and beauty. In 1985 he retired from journalism and went to live in Granada. He currently devotes his time to painting and organising monographic exhibitions such as “Lorca y sus amigos”, “Mujeres de mis sueños”, “La Generación del 27”, “República o ‘esto'”, “Homenaje a Francisco Ayala” and “Besitos desde Sodoma”, and published books such as Cenizas de un mar en llamas, dedicated to immigration. In 2014, he was awarded the Medal of Andalusia and, in 2016, the Gat Perich International Humour Prize.
