Rafael Canogar

Rafael Canogar - Guitars

Artist Biography: Toledo, 1935. Rafael Canogar trained in Madrid, in the studio of the painter Daniel Vázquez Díaz, together with the artists Cristino de Vera and Agustín Ibarrola. His beginnings are marked by an undoubted following of the cubism of Picasso and Braque and the surrealism of Joan Miró, until evolving towards informalist abstraction. After taking classes with models at the Círculo de Bellas Artes in Madrid, he participated in the creation of the El Paso group (1957-1959) with a first exhibition at the Buchholz Gallery with Manuel Millares, Antonio Saura, Luis Feito, Manuel Rivera, Pablo Serrano, Juana Francés and Antonio Suárez. to which photography would later be incorporated. At the beginning of the sixties he abandoned the informalist movement to approach reality, reduced chromaticism to black and white plays and gradually returned to the abstraction he had discovered in Paris. His technique continued to evolve through experimentation with materials such as polyester, acrylic, wood and fibreglass, with which he composed his characteristic collages, works with a vocation for sculpture. His career as an artist has been rewarded with the applause of the public and critics in numerous solo exhibitions and being one of the names included in collections such as those of the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Museo de Arte Abstracto Español de Cuenca, MOMA in New York, Banco Santander Central Hispano Collection and Vatican Museums in Rome. among many others. In addition to having received countless recognitions such as the National Prize for Plastic Arts (Madrid, 1982), the Commendation of the Order of Isabel la Católica (Madrid, 1991) or the Gold Medal for Merit in the Fine Arts of the Spanish State in 2003.