Person
Alzola González, José Miguel (1913-2014)
Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (Gran Canaria, Las Palmas, España) 1913-03-21 - Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (Gran Canaria, Las Palmas, España) 2014-05-06
Spanish lawyer, historian and ethnographer. He studied Law in the Universidad de La Laguna (Tenerife). He was province representative of Fine Arts and director of the Canary Museum between 1972 and 1987. Throughout his life he combined both his work as a lawyer and his vocation as Canarian Islands' historian. It is said that the Canary Museum became a reference of knowledge about pre-Hispanic culture thanks to his efforts as a leader of the museum. The same happened with the Cueva Pintada de Gáldar, also known as the "Sistine Chapel of the indigenous art", which, thanks to this Canarian historian is now a compulsory stop for both researchers and tourists, which once was a forgotten and unknown place. He has been widely recognized and awarded as an historian of Canarian cultural heritage, receiving the title of son Gran Canaria, just to mention one. Moreover, from 1988, he was a member of the Real Academia Canaria de Bellas Artes (Canarian Royal Academy of Fine Arts), of the one of Santa Isabel de Hungría of Sevilla and others such as the one of San Fernando. Since 1960, he published works about art history, biographies, local history and ethnography, with titles such as "Historia del Ilustre Colegio de Abogados de Las Palmas", "La rueda de Gran Canaria", "La Cueva Puntada de Gáldar", "La Navidad en Gran Canaria", "El millo en Gran Canaria", "Don Chano Corvo" and "Crónica de un jardinero y su jardín".