The story of count Suiza – 2013
welded stainless steel. 1200dia x 600 mm
The story of count Suiza…
Over 27 years ago I was working in a factory building racing powerboats… during one lunchtime discussion I commented on how beautiful some of the engines were… high performance machines meticulously finished. One of the older tradesmen, an itinerant American sailor/boatbuilder, proceeded to tell me about Count Suiza, who was, apparently, one of the founders of the famed Hispano-Suiza automotive and aircraft engine manufacturer in Spain..apparently Count Suiza was such a perfectionist that he would require all engine components, including internal parts, con-rods, pistons etc to be presented to him before entering production, so that he could assess them on a basis of aesthetic merit… the story stuck in my mind and after many years I decided to use this characters devotion as the basis for an art idea…. but when I began to research him I found that there was in fact no such man as count Suiza… in fact the name Suiza literally meant ‘Swiss’ … the likeliest contender for the newly fictional role of the Count would seem to be Emilio de la Cuadra Albiol, a spanish army lieutenant who after working on a number of projects developing electrical generation and propulsion was one of the founders of Hispano – Suiza … but there are no accounts of him having a particularly heightened aesthetic sensitivity and I have found no records of him examining engine components to assess their beauty…
After my initial surprise and some disappointment I didn’t find it hard to accept the non-existence of the ‘Count’… history is haunted with chinese whispers after all … but what continues to intrigue me is the depth of the character development I have created for this man.. I have been imagining him for 27 years now.. and have retold the tale in complete sincerity for all of that time … I have pictured him dapper, impeccably groomed and dressed in a three piece beige suit, energetic and precise in his movements and gestures… black slick hair..clean shaved , in his beautiful polished wood lined office, rich with blueprints, plans objects and curios… or striding about the factory floor exhorting with infectious enthusiasm… I can even hear the sound of his clipped, assertive, annunciated speech …. which may owe a little to Zorro…but where did he come from..? not just my amalgam of associations and cliches.. but the initial story …who invented him , or misplaced him and why .. It seems unlikely to have been the tradesman who related the story … he was mostly a stolid worker and not given to flights of fancy that I can recall…despite his style of life… and then what of the wind borne fictions that I have subsequently cast up into conversations …? who else is maintaining Count Suiza in their imaginings and what does he look like there..? will I meet him coming back the other way ..? is he in some way the proto-typical virus ..will he ever die ..
I have grown very fond of Count Suiza .. he is tireless, inventive, driven , and there is an almost idealistic fervor to the way he applies himself to his work… a bettering of the lot of his fellow man is how he sees the fruits of his labours- not that he’s naive .. but he’s no politician..
I suspect Count Suiza will be with me forever now… he’s made it this far and seems to have solidified rather than diminished. I doubt if I could evict him now even if I wanted to … anyway he’s working on a very interesting project using rare earth magnets …