We welcome you and we hope that all the information described here and some of the collected paintings he's done throughout his life, be to your liking.

José Castro Dopico commented:

'Even a stain on the canvas is already adventure.

Since childhood I have shaped my penchant for drawing and, as a teenager, I entered the School of Arts and Crafts of A Coruña. I was drawing seven years, with pencil, charcoal and blending stumps until I managed to be part of a group that started in the art of oil painting.

I fail to define the painting and its personal meaning but represents everything to me. Maybe we can not live of it , but I know that is my true calling.

I think when talking about whether the artist born or made, It should be taken into consideration that first there is a process that tilts you toward something you like and then a profession, a doing. Without work the goals are not achieved.

The career of a painter should be based on continuous learning.

In the past, the artist cornered the picture one year. After that time he returned again at it and analyzed it. I have never rushed nor considered a work finished off.

I think there is no perfection, only better and worse artworks.

In the portrait you have to know to capture the proper position, as the artwork should have personality.

You have to talk to the portrayed and watch their reactions and bring out the inner self to capture the essence of the person.

There are four facets to a painter, which are: drawing, still life , landscape and finally, portrait , which are the steps to follow.'

Reviews

José Castro has obtained artworks full of vigor and certainly has achieved a resonant success with his first outing.

Portraits, still lifes and landscapes, compose the sample. In both portraits and still lifes, Castro Dopico shows, good profession and optimum shapes.

He points good disposition to the cultivation of the portrait and still life, with achievements as notables like the numbers 6, 1 and 2, in the firsts -which is precisely where the artist feels the influence of the master hand of Quintas Goyanes- and still lifes 14, 18 and 17, the best of all, for its fineness of qualities.

Claudio Varela de Cambre
La Voz de Galicia
November 3, 1967

There are numerous oil and watercolor paintings that the artist exhibits in the Art Gallery of Banco de Credito e Inversiones, varied thematic, ranging from still life to the sea, through the landscapes, portraits, urban and rural buildings and scenes of men "da mariña" and field.

The value of this work is based on drawing of remarkable perfection, and the peculiar intonation that the artist gives his paintings, set the Galician countryside, which dominates the soft colorist tonality; similar to that used by Parmaroli in one of his paintings, although in the landscape of forest with another color strength, is closer to other of Beruete. Between those included on the exhibition stands out number 4, simply titled "Forest", in which the play of light through the trees is perfectly achieved

Following the pictorial school of Corunna, Castro Dopico it shows from grays of Galician Marinas what is in them of smoothing of shapes, as seen in the 9, in which, blurred the whole of the mist, can be seen between it an isolated boat at sea.

J. Trapero Pardo
El Progreso
June 24, 1981

This painter from Corunna cultivates one of the several diferent realisms from the reality.

Presents sets of light and shade for the birth of light, impossible to paint as the authorized voice of Cézanne said. Just the composition, both by the volumes as the intensity of color, sometimes tended in broad secure brushstroke and others contained in the detail.

You can guess the existence of a first, isolated and rigorous academicism defeated by the resonance of best post-impressionism. This painting deserves attention and its come face to today.

Laureano Álvarez
La Voz de Galicia
1.985

After some time without exposing their works in Lugo, now comes with refined technique and more approached the neo-impressionism, the artist coruñés Castro Dopico, which features 32 oil paintings at the Art Gallery of Galician Bank, which, painting with "amore" appears the portrait of the artist's wife and which is a success of fidelity to the model and a study of composition in the portrait, contrasting the realism and psychology of face with the garments, these in clearly expressionist technique.

The Sea.

Castro Dopico, true to his themes, looking for inspiration at sea, or approaches to urban places and rustic homes and our rural landscape, without govern human figure, in which stand out Portrait of my grandson, perfect naked child in line and expression.

In the landscape, the artist, as Ruskin said about Turner , searches in the Nature a place where you can discover the spirit of the things. Small landscapes between mist and sweet cloudscapes; landscapes of large format and Rincón de Chelo and Camino en el bosque, studied with different chromatism, the first valuing the foregrounds tonal strength and the second deep perspective and bright greens, where the focus presents warm lighting effects, studied with sense of depth and romanticism of a great avenue between trees.

Impressionist brushwork.

This artist, in front to the ocean, the dock and the ship, knows -art, craft, drawing- rips off to the light and the form, with impressionist and safe brushwork, the natural value and until human that the sea offers, when seen with eye of the artist and love for the poetic, as shown in Marina about difficult composition. The perfection of drawing becomes even adjusted in paintings of Betanzos and Lugo. Between several from Lugo I will highlight Rincon de Lugo, with also historical value because it reminds old buildings, which peeked at the Plaza Maior, now in bad time modified.

Castro Dopico "builds" buildings with methodical stroke. On issues nude, even more paintings of set of Betanzos and Lugo. Between several from Lugo I will highlight Rincón de Lugo , with also historical value because it reminds old buildings, which appear the roundness of lines and shapes that can lead looks, as said about others of Matisse, Dionysian impulse, i.e. human passion. The artist proves that he has attached to new techniques, a equilibrated neorealism, which gives to his works new pictorial values, because without falling into academicism, poetizes the reality.

J. Trapero Pardo
El Progreso
October 18, 1.991


The value of this work is based on the drawing of remarkable perfection and on the peculiar intonation that the artist gives to his paintings, similar to the one used by Palmaroli in some of his paintings, although in the landscape of forest, with another chromatic force, approaches more to anothers of Bernete. Castro Dopico extracts the one that there is in them of smoothing of the forms out of the grays of the Galician navies. Still without separating from the realism, Castro Dopico holds in some of his works a poetic and suggestive meaning, that setting off from a neo-impressionism that is noticed in most of his paintings, carries out human figures and other elements, composing them with a remarkables structure and coloring. In the watercolor, with technique similar to that of the oil, the artist proves his safety and cleaning of line, using volumes and veilings to the first line, the one that it gives to his artworks, relief and depth. Special technique is that of drawing with the spatula and black ink, which allows the sensation of an etching to the painting. The human figure abounds in the work of Castro Dopico. Positions and foreshortenings suitable for the scene in which the perspectives achieved by the gradation of the size of these at the same time as it achieves that beautiful effects of expression appear.

J. Trapero Pardo
El Progreso
1.991

If I had to define in few words the pictorial work of this artista from A Coruña, it would say that the method, the drawing, the light and the poetic sensitivity that of his work emanates, are his main attributes.

Figurative painter, of his hand we introduce ourselves in a world of light and peace. It coats the canvas with a diaphanous clarity. It shines and reverberates with subtle and delicate touches, moves free and covers silently to the spectator, inviting him to penetrate into the artwork and to uncover the secret that show his landscapes.

These cover a wide thematic; paths and corredoiras, wooded nooks , mute testimonies of old cities, navies, etc.

They all tell us a brief history: that of the painter confronted with one beautiful nook, which collects in the canvas with mime and affection and that offers to the spectator in all his reality.
Veracious painter, defined with a neo-impressionism, in his pictorial chore they give themselves by hand the drawing of academic echo and the brushstroke releases, daredevil, spontaneous, but always subject to the will director of the artist .

With that, he adjusts the technique and elaborates balanced and harmonious compositions, where the depth acquires an important value and is as carefully elaborated as the first term.

The soberness defines his still lifes. Simples but never poor, his elements are wisely chosen and handled with success, appearing an lyricism almost ascetic.

His sensitivity not only leads him to penetrate into the spirit of the nature, and so is demonstrated by his portraits. These are a testimony of his faithfulness to the model, his methodical and reflexive professionalism, and his capacity of penetration in the psychology of the portrayed one.

I think the best that can be said of this artist, it is that he is in his work and this arrives directly to the spectator. If it is the case, it is done certain the old maxim: "An image is more valid than a thousand words".

And here are his images and that be many times.

Cristina de Llano
Bachelor?s Degree in Art History
1.993

The painter from A Coruña, José Castro Dopico will expose his creative work, from the 5th of April, in the room of the Bank Bilbao-Vizcaya in Ferrol. The sample, which will be able to be visited until the 15th of that month, of seven in the afternoon to nine in the night, includes some images collected in the city of Ferrol, among them the street of Carmen and the squares of Spain and Amboage, besides sights of the Coruña, as for example of the Castle of San Antón.

Compostela, Betanzos, Chamorro and Chantada are, among others, some of the localities that inspired this artist from whom the criticism highlights his neo-impressionistic style and his pure technique.


Own Names
Editorial
La Voz de Galicia
March 31, 1.994


The painter from A Coruña, José Castro Dopico exposes his work since last eleventh day in the room of art of the Galician Bank of Lugo. The sample, which collects a total of thirty-three works of different themes, will be able to be visited until the 18th in schedule of visits from 7 to 9 and average of the night on work days and from 12 to 2 of the midday, the public holidays. In the view of José Trapero Pardo, according to review carried out for the previous exhibition of the painter and that appears in the catalog, "Castro Dopico builds buildings with methodical brushstroke the neo-impressionism predominating in his work".

Castro Dopico in Banco Gallego
Exhibitions
El Progreso
October 14, 1.994

Already in previous exhibitions he proved his mastership in the drawing; but at present, new technical achievements join to that remarkable condition, always leaving his personality and his inspiration in them. One of the characteristics of Castro Dopico is that of knowing how to give expression to the movement or to the inertia in his works, in accordance with the one that they represent. Joined to perfection of the drawing, which would do of his paintings a realism at all costs, if he does not put that a little "vital", in which it is inert, in them; Castro Dopico represents monuments, in which, using tones and lights, and the contrasts of light and shadows; he gets to give them an efficiency, it seems we be facing these real monuments. In his self-portrait and in that of a girl, can be seen as he has known how to use the brushstroke and the color, to that the faces express a emotional situation that the photographic camera could not get. Paintings of composition of figures and atmospheres, get us in different functions, but joined by the feeling that his author put in the works. In all his works the perfection of the art that Castro Dopico put in his work and the poetic meaning that he gave to everyone of his paintings appears.

J. Trapero Pardo
Exhibitions
El Progreso
October 18, 1.994


Still lifes, landscapes and portraits know about the genius of this creator with the paintbrush. After proving his mastership in the drawing, Castro Dopico was turned in in body and soul to the oil.

La Región
1.995


True painter, defined as a neo-impressionism in his pictorial chore, if, the drawing of academic echo and the loose brushstroke, give by hand daredevil, spontaneous. In each of his frames, Castro Dopico looks for sensitivity, especially in the difficult world of the portrait.

La Región
1.995