Self-taught, his first painting technique was in his youth by the Manchego painter Antonio Iniesta, in the city of Manzanares (Ciudad Real). But it would be a trip through Europe in the early 1960s that would lead him to use sculpture as his main means of expression. There he discovered the work of the artist Marta Pan, the work of Brancusi and Max Bell. It was on that same trip that his interest in sculptural forms was born, in shaping space through modeling. In 1962, Giraldo sought out Luis Garrido, founder of Estampa Popular, and spoke about some of the members of that artistic movement, such as José Ortega, Javier Clavo and Ricardo Zamorano.
In 1963 he decided to settle in Madrid. He shared the studio in the late 1960s with several young people, including Julien Gilles, a famous constructivist painter. There he meets the sculptor José Luis Sánchez and joins the workshop as an apprentice. With him he learned the technique of concrete murals, as well as bronze work, of which he made several examples years later when he lived in the Canary Islands, where he settled in Gran Canaria from 1968. In these years Giraldo experimented with abstract form in bronze with informal bias. In 1967 he traveled to the Netherlands and was accepted into the Ateliers Academie 63 in Haarlem.
Here he coincides with the sculptor Nicholas Visser, a representative of minimalist abstract constructivism. Some works by the Manchego sculptor from the late 1970s, such as Siete (1976), Demos (1976), Oulu I (1978), formally recall Visser: a marble base serves as a tray to support the iron figures. The quality of the works led the critics of the moment to become interested in their productions. Critics and writers such as Eduardo Westerdahl, José Hierro, Ignacio Vassallo, Geralt Miracle, Rodríguez Aguilera, Zaya, Hernandez Pereira, etc. They devoted articles to the study and analysis of their creations. One of the most important magazines of the time, Guadalimar, placed Giraldo’s works, the result of the resounding success of the Galería Rayuela exhibition (Madrid, 1979), alongside the great Spanish sculptors of the time: Chillida, Serrano, Chirino and José Luis Sanchez. This exposure also resulted in his first contact with the publication Cambio 16, which two years later hired him to celebrate the newspaper’s anniversary (1981). For this work, he made one of his multiple acquaintances.
In the following decades, ending in the 20th century, Giraldo’s work reached unimaginable production levels, which can only be understood by three characteristics that, in our view, define the artist’s modus operandi: dedication, discipline and demand. His life was centered in the workshop, like a chemist, with long journeys, far removed from the political relationships that took place in the cultural framework of those years.
Participation in the largest contemporary art exhibition in Spain is just another example of the sculptor’s journey. Thus, in the Vegueta exhibition at ARCO 83, among the artists he represented, in addition to Giraldo himself, were Juan Bordes, Cruz Brindis and García Alvarez. Four years later, at ARCO 87, he participates again at Galeria Attiir, with the painter Jorge Ortega. In 1987 he won first prize for sculpture in the Regional Plastic Arts Competition of Castilla la Mancha with the work Tito Copernico II. In Villanueva de los Infantes he left for posterity, located in the Plaza Mayor of the city, his well-known collection of sculptures by Don Quixote. In addition to sculpture, stained glass windows, especially in religious buildings, are a landmark in architecture of this type, such as those made in the Ecumenical Temple (San Bartolomé de Tirajana) or the Bank of Spain (Santa Cruz de Tenerife). Undoubtedly, one of the great sculptors of our country, especially in the Canary Islands, left.
