Antonio Saura

Antonio Saura - Odeur de la Sainteté

Artist Biography: He was born in Huesca in 1930 and died in Cuenca in 1998. He began to paint and write in Madrid in 1947, while recovering from tuberculosis that kept him immobilized for five years. First searches and first pictorial experiences. He claims the influence of Arp and Tanguy, but is already distinguished by a personal style; He created numerous drawings and paintings of a dreamlike and surrealist nature in which he generally depicted imaginary landscapes that he captured in a flat, smooth and colour-rich material. First stay in Paris in 1952. A second period in Paris between 1954 and 1955 during which he met Benjamin Péret and frequented the group of Surrealists, from whom he soon distanced himself along with his friend the painter Simon Hantaï. He then used the technique of grattage, adopting a gestural style and a radically abstract, colourful painting, with an organic and random conception. He began to paint by occupying the space of the canvas in various and very diverse ways, creating his own formal structures that he would not stop developing. First appearances of forms that would soon become archetypes of the woman's body or the human figure, two fundamental themes that would occupy the essence of his work. From 1956 Saura began his major series, Ladies, Nudes, Self-Portraits, Shrouds, Crucifixions, which he painted both on canvas and on paper. In 1957 he founded the group El Paso in Madrid, which he directed until its dissolution in 1960. Meet Michel Tapié. First solo exhibition at Rodolphe Stadler's gallery in Paris, where he exhibited constantly throughout his life. Stadler introduced him to Otto van de Loo in Munich and Pierre Matisse in New York, who would also exhibit and perform his work. He then limits his palette to blacks, grays, and browns. He asserts himself in his own style and independent of the movements and tendencies of his generation. His work is in line with Velázquez and Goya. Step inside the main museums. From 1959 onwards he devoted himself to a prolific graphic work. He illustrated in an original way numerous books such as Don Quixote, by Cervantes, 1984, by Orwell, Pinocchio in the adaptation of Nöstlinger, Tagebücher, by Kafka, Three Visions, by Quevedo, and many others. In 1960 he began to sculpt and made works composed of welded metal elements that represent the human figure, characters and crucifixions. In 1967 he settled permanently in Paris; He was involved in the opposition to the Franco dictatorship and participated in numerous debates and controversies in the fields of politics, aesthetics and artistic creation. He broadens his thematic and pictorial range. Along with the Woman-Armchair series, Goya's Imaginary Portraits, The Dog and Goya's Imaginary Portrait appear. In 1971 he abandoned painting on canvas, which he resumed in 1979, to devote himself to writing, drawing and painting on paper. From 1977 he began to publish his writings and made several sets for the theatre, as well as for ballet and opera. In 1983 he created an important series of portraits entitled Dora Maar or Dora Maar visited. From that date until his untimely death, he masterfully resumed and developed all his themes and figures to produce, perhaps, the best of his work. The works shown in ARCO 2020 are part of the "Foto-Grafia" series, currently on display at La Caja Negra. The exhibition presents a set of unpublished works by Antonio Saura made in the early 1960s. These works were recorded by the artist in his log under the title Foto-Grafia and ready for a production that was never carried out. It is a series of superimpositions on intervened photographs that show a great capacity for innovation and experimentation within his career.