Felipe Orlando: 'Citizen of the world' and Benalmádena

Benalmádena has become the preferred residence of numerous foreign artists and musicians over the years, and many of them have left their mark in some way or another. This is certainly the case with Mexican artist Juan de Dios Felipe Orlando García Murciano.

Known simply as Felipe Orlando, he was born in Mexico on 21 January 1911, although his family moved to Cuba when he was just six years old, where he grew up and trained as a painter, in addition to completing several university studies. Orlando was described as a true Renaissance man in modern times: he was a writer, poet, painter, anthropologist and curious traveller. Living in Cuba, New York, Mexico and finally on the Costa del Sol, he often referred to himself as a "citizen of the world".

Developing a passion for the south of Spain, he decided to settle first in Mojácar (Almeria), then in Malaga city, and finally in Benalmádena, where there is also a street named in his honour.

He descended from a culturally educated family and from his youth he mixed with important personalities from the 1930s avant-garde movement. Throughout his career he maintained friendships with artistic personalities such as the Catalan painter and sculptor, Joan Miró, and Malaga artists Emilio Prados, Moreno Villa and Manuel Altolaguirre.

His travels around the world brought him to Spain in the 1960s to take possession of a collection of pre-Columbian pieces that his grandfather had left him as an inheritance. These are now displayed in the museum that bears his name in Benalmádena Pueblo. Orlando, a prolific painter, was director and curator of this museum for 30 years until his death in Benalmádena on 10 April 2001.

On his death, Benalmádena town hall described him as someone with an "intense intellectual and artistic activity, bequeathing a vast cultural heritage both to Benalmádena and to the world".