Calle de Francisco Alcántara

Francisco Alcántara Jurado (1854-1930) came to Madrid to study law, fell under the influence of the Free Institution of Education, and ended up devoting his life to looking at paintings and writing about them. His most lasting mark was made not in ink but in clay: in 1911 he founded the Madrid School of Ceramics, determined to restore dignity to an art he saw being sold short. The El Viso estate, built in the 1930s at the end of calle de Serrano, dedicated several streets to cultural figures. That of Francisco Alcántara is one of those short, tree-lined streets best walked slowly, just as he recommended looking at painting.