Madrid opens Year of Sempere by showing some unreleased tracks

One of them is Eusebio Sempere (Onil, 1923-Onil, 1985). Bought it from the artist on Onil in 1962. largest acquisition by an individual of their joint work. About About thirty gouaches for 100,000 pesetasThe man from Alicante paid to enter His house on José Soriano street in Madrid. The artist said, “Things are going well for me this season and I’m selling paintings unbelievably. Long live!” Alfons Roig On September 17, 1962.

curator of MACA, Rosa Castells, in the exhibition catalog From Paris to Madrid. 1950-1965This is the first exhibition they have jointly exhibited. 18 of these pieces (16 gouache and two panels), along with other pieces from the gallery and private collectors, and will open on Tuesday. Madrid gallery Guillermo de Osmamarks the opening of the Year of Sempere for the centennial of his birth.

This Forty works brought together in this exhibitionThe tour can be seen until April 21 Sempere’s career from 1954 to 1965 through collages, gouaches and oils, as well as rotating sculpture Organcarried out on a large scale for Juan March Madrid Foundation where it is. A less explored stage in the artist’s life, beginning and trip to Paris, which meant absorbing the influence of artists like Kandinsy or Matisse to construct their own language.

“I think it’s one of the artist’s most interesting moments,” assures gallery owner Guillermo de Osma. “It is a fundamental moment because it is the moment when Sempere, when you create your own style, that special integral and super recognizable style. This is the Sempere brand created during the Paris years.”

An exhibition in time

The exhibition, which was introduced yesterday, began to take shape “a long time ago” and finally the conditions, this is the centennial. “A friend of mine from the USA called me and said that he had a Sempere collection and he didn’t know what to do with it. That’s what I did and that’s how we did this exhibition.”

from Osma, Always involved in Sempere’s recoveryHe underlines that he was one of the pioneers of geometric abstraction in Spain, together with Palazuelo, “which he came across in Paris, but”it is very different because it combines geometry and lyricismlots of poetic elements”.

In addition, “the idea of ​​the exhibition is alsodraw attention by saying that he is a very important artist; Besides the strength of the exhibition, he is very fundamental and a very good artist, like a wake-up call because we live with these artists and we take it for granted that they are good, but once again we must remember innovative creators like him”.

“It represents the work of Eusebio Sempere in an exceptional way. The last years of the 50s, still in Paris, and the work of the first two years in Madrid, On his return to Spain. If the work on paper is excellent, they are no less mobile. tables in which gouache is traced on the material floor, one dedicated to Fray Angélico in shades of sienna, the other dedicated to the women closest to her life, in this case her sister Concha, gray from the series, which collects Rosa Castells in the catalog, which also includes an article by the independent curator. osbel suarez and art critic Alfonso de la Torre.

“Semper a man devoted to contemporary art and its dissemination“, Castells explains about Sempere, who had “extraordinary artistic moments” such as his early computer creations, and whose work has been exhibited in museums like his. Pompidou, MoMA or Reina Sofia.

“He was a dedicated artist, working on fruit packing and unloading trucks by day and by the light of his lamp at night. worked on gouache paints and works“, he emphasizes.

A missed opportunity for Alicante

This helig’s collection Had the Alicante City Council approved Sempere’s purchase on any of the three occasions for which this set of works was offered, it could now be in MACA funds.

Helig, who ran the Georgetown alcohol and tobacco company he sold in the mid-1960s, returned to the United States with all parts purchased, although devastated, its trace was lost. Until in the summer of 2001, Edwar Helig and his wife Rosalía Ordóñez visited Alicante and then the Insured Museum. “What Sempere’s career has been like, its value and see the possibility of acquiring artifacts from the museum“.

Rosa Castells could seePhotographs of 17 gouache paints on cardboard and 3 on wood (one is now missing)“Unpublished and exceptional,” he states. The museum has maintained a relationship with them to include these pieces in the collection. the artist’s catalog raisonné, still unfinished. “I did a report to see the possibility of depositing and then buying, but nothing happened.”

in 2005 After her husband died in 2004, Helig’s wife again contacted the Alicante museum to have the artefacts resubmitted to this centre. New report that doesn’t work.

Nine years later, “A prominent American choreographer commissioned by Rosalía Ordóñez to broker her sale offers it to us again, but, the local government did not let go of this business once again years later it was bought by American gallery owner Don Christiansen”.

And it was through him that they returned to Spain to be a part of this exhibition.