Nike: Half a Century of Spanish Advertising

The painter who signed as "Nike"

After the Civil War, Gil Guerra built one of the most prolific and consistent advertising careers in Spain under the pseudonym "Nike", working with the agency Hijos de Valeriano Pérez. His campaign for Anís de la Asturiana ran for nearly fifty years in the pages of ABC (1950–1998) — one of the longest-running campaigns in Spanish advertising. This archive gathers the originals preserved by the family: gouaches and inks for the press, posters and labels for brands such as Philips, Coty, Pepsi-Cola, Movado and Coñac Peinado.

Gil Guerra worked three professions at once: painting, teaching —he was a drawing professor for four decades— and advertising. While he signed as "Nike" for half of Spain, his studio turned out commissioned portraits and still lifes, costumbrista scenes, figures and landscapes, sold to collectors in Spain and abroad. The same hand that drew the ads everyone remembered signed the paintings that hang today in private collections.

See his easel work →