SANCHO PANZA OF MONTMARTRE

AS THE first half of the 20th century shakes down into perspective, it seems certain that the art contribution of the Spanish contingent will bulk surprisingly large. Top banana of the bunch is, of course, Pablo Picasso. But there are also Juan Gris, pioneer Sculptor-Welder Julio Gonzalez, Surrealists Joan Miro and Salvador Dali. And now another name is being nominated for the list: the late Manuel Martinez Hugue (1872-1945), better known simply as Manolo, whose small-scale bronzes and terra-cotta sculptures are the most earthy and most intensely Spanish art works of the lot.

A scampish Bohemian who dressed like a gypsy, sported a wide-brimmed hat and passed himself off as a guitarrista, Manolo boasted that he "knew all the thieves of my time." No one doubted his word. The illegitimate son of a proud Spanish officer, he was urged to make the army his career; instead, he deserted when he was drafted, hid out in Barcelona with gypsies, petty thieves and the hungry artists who met at the IV Gats cafe. On the side he studied painting and sculpture.

Sculpture in a Dairy. A year after his friend Picasso went to Paris, Manolo used his last peseta for train fare, arrived at Paris' Gare d'Austerlitz knowing one word in French: "Montmartre." Once there, Manolo rapidly established himself with his peasant shrewdness and high-spirited escapades as the Sancho Panza of Montmartre, and was soon fending for himself. Reports Picasso's mistress of that day, Fernande Olivier: "Happily, he fell in love with the daughter of a dairyman who hired him each day to sculpture animals and flowers in mounds of butter."

When the butter ran out, Manolo readjusted to poverty. One story has it that he actually pinched a painting from the Louvre, and Picasso returned it to the police. Another time, invited to live with Painter Paco Durio, Manolo took advantage of his friend's absence to sell off Durio's Gauguin collection. "When circumstances became more favorable," explained Manolo in later years, "I stopped doing inelegant things forever. I never thought to steal after the war of '14."

A Fright at the Station. What made the difference was a contract from famed cubist Art Dealer Henry Kahnweiler, who still today says of Sculptor Manolo: "I think he was greater than Maillol." Manolo discovered the charms of the small town of Ceret near the Spanish border, and was soon surrounded by vacationing Montmartre friends, including Picasso, Georges Braque and Juan Gris. But though living in the midst of early cubist experiments--French critics called Ceret "the Barbizon of cubism"--Manolo would have none of it, once snapped at Picasso, then at work on his cubist Accordionist: "What would you say, Picasso, if your parents were to come to fetch you at the station in Barcelona and found you with such a fright?" Instead, Manolo stuck to the classic tradition, strove to render bullfighters, gypsy singers, peasant women and children with the ring of truth.

This week, banners strung across the main street of Ceret announce Manolo's first one-man show in the town's Museum of Modern Art, including a poster especially designed by Manolo's old comrade Picasso. Next week Manhattan's Galerie Chalette will honor Manolo's art with an exhibition of 23 Manolo sculptures. Both exhibitions testify to the vigor and honesty of one of the least known of 20th century sculptors.

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