He was one of the Spanish artists who made the most impact internationally in recent years. His iconography, archetypal and sometimes almost schematic, marked in black and white, made his recognizable mark at the Venice Biennale, or MoMA, where he exhibited as a member of the El Paso group. The transcendence of Antonio Saura arrives in Valencia to commemorate 25 years since the painter’s death and 50 years since the opening of the Bancaja Foundation, which hosts the major retrospective exhibition dedicated to the Aragonese artist. «When they asked him how he wanted to be remembered, he said: ‘I lived by painting.’ Above all, he wanted to paint, and he painted what he wanted with determination and meticulousness, right down to the tip of the knife,” said Rafael Alcón, president of the Bancaja Foundation.
One of the first supporters of this exhibition was Tomás Llorens, former director of IVAM, Reina Sofia and Thyssen Curator, who died in 2021 at the age of 84. «This exhibition proposal emerged in a conversation I had with my friend Tomás Llorens a few years ago. “Alcón would love to see the idea come to fruition,” he added.
«Antonio Saura. Essential” examines the artist’s career through 87 works from the Reina Sofia Museum, with the exception of “Foule” from the Caja Rural de Aragón Foundation and “Las tres Gracias” from the Bancaja Foundation. The exhibition was opened yesterday by Rosario Peiró of Valencia, the collection area of the Reina Sofia It was introduced at an event attended by president Rafael Alcón; and commissioners Fernando Castro and Lola Durán. «This exhibition attempts to vindicate one of the Spanish artists with the most international projection. El Paso was the catalyst for Spanish art in the middle of the Franco regime in the late 1950s and sought a space of freedom in art. Referring to the art group’s exhibition in the 60s, Castro said, “There has never been a generation of artists who made as much impact as they did.”
Against the “Spanish” label
Throughout his life, Saura complained about the “Spanish artist” label imposed on him abroad, especially because of the “tragic streak” that referred to the Spanish genre of painting. “But he realized that he was influencing Goya, Velázquez or El Greco,” Lola Durán recalled. “He had reasons to dislike that label, first of all because of the national-Catholic tendency he saw in the country. “He wanted to distance himself from secret readings, but the truth was that he was a Spanish artist,” Castro concluded.
Temperament, desire for knowledge, rurality and dreaminess are part of the picture of Saura, who lived for a short time in Valencia due to the work of her father, a lawyer and tax technician. Tragedy and illness struck his life early. Bone tuberculosis kept him in bed as a young man for five years, and during this time he became interested in music, reading and art. This would be the beginning of his career. Death marked his adulthood as his two daughters, Ana and Elena, died between the 80s and 90s.
Automat
In its first phase, it experienced a growing interest in surrealism, which was on the rise. Following this trend, he opened two exhibitions, one in Zaragoza and the other in Madrid. He decided to go to Paris, where he was very well received by the artists. “This is where his view of surrealism changed. What he thought he would find ‘modern’ he found outdated. He thought surrealism was looking backwards. From that moment on, his paintings tended toward psychic automatism,” Durán explained.
That is, the animalistic urge the artist feels to paint, which turns the act of creation into a melee between Saura and the canvas. There are ladies, nudes, crucifixions, heads, imaginary portraits, crowds, cathedrals and cocktail parties from this period. This block of the exhibition consists of the best-known pieces from Saura’s career. «He used an image to avoid falling into chaos. In the works of this period, Saura’s duality is notable for the extreme cleanliness of the schematic figures that form its basis and the cumulative, almost expansive works in which presence is diluted in mass,” Lola explained.
life and death
Reading or listening to Saura is crucial to understanding his work. For this reason, the Bancaja Foundation acquired the painter’s writings along with some pieces. There is also a projection of a video provided by Movistar+ in which Saura talks about life and death under the title ‘Last Word’. This is an interview he conducted at his home in Cuenca on July 16, 1998, a month before he died of leukemia at the age of 67. Exhibition «Antonio Saura. Essential» is on view at the Bancaja Foundation until January 18.