Javier Mariscal

Francisco Javier Errando Mariscal (born 9 February 1950) better known as Javier Mariscal is a Spanish artist and designer whose work has spanned a wide range of mediums, ranging from painting and sculpture to interior design and landscaping. He was born in February 1950 in the city of Valencia, Spain, into a family of eleven brothers and sisters. Since 1970, he has been living and working in Barcelona. Career Mariscal's artistic language is synthetic, with few strokes and a great deal of expressiveness. He started studying at Colegio El Pilar in Valencia. After that he studied design at the Elisava School in Barcelona, but he soon left to learn directly in his environment and follow his own creative impulses. His first steps were in underground comics, a task that he soon combined with illustration, sculpture, graphic design and interior design. In 1979, he designed the Bar Cel Ona logo, a work that would make him popular. The following year, he opened the first bar in Valencia designed by Mariscal, together with Fernando Salas, the Duplex, for which he designed one of his most famous pieces, the Duplex stool, an authentic icon of the 1980s. In 1981, his work as a furniture designer led him to participate in the exhibition Memphis, an International Style, in Milan. In 1987, he gave an exhibition at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris and participated in the Documenta de Kassel. Throughout the 1980s, he designed several textile collections for Marieta and Tráfico de Modas and exhibited at the Vinçon salon in Barcelona. In 1989, Cobi was chosen as the official mascot for the 1992 Summer Olympics to be held in Barcelona. The mascot was the centre of great controversy because of its vanguard image, but Cobi is now recognised as the most profitable mascot in the history of the modern games. He also created Petra, the official mascot of the 1992 Summer Paralympics. He was later the creative and artistic director of the animated television series The Cobi Troupe that starred both mascots.