MANUEL VIOLA (Zaragoza, 1916 - San Lorenzo de El Escorial, 1987).

MANUEL VIOLA (Zaragoza, 1916 - San Lorenzo de El Escorial, 1987). Untitled, circa 1968. Mixed media on tablex on stretcher. Attached certificate of authenticity issued by D. Jacobo Manuel Viola Arroyo, son of the artist. Provenance: Private collection of the artist. Measurements: 61,5 x 60 cm. The work comes from the private collection of the artist, who kept those pieces that meant a technical advance in his painting, which helped him to reflect, and to evolve aesthetically during his artistic process. One of the significant characteristics of these pieces is the lack of signature, since the author understood them as personal study paintings, but fundamental in the conception of his technique. The piece shows the usual use of black as a background in which the tonalities are reversed, and in turn emerge as flashes of light, in an immense inconcrete emptiness. A pictorial space, which becomes a visual poetry, where the tensions generated by the artist, through the contrast of shades, such as magenta and armarillo, directly question the viewer. In this apparently simple work, Viola introduces on the black, only the primary colors, which he manipulates with great mastery, to create a whole range of shades, which merge between the brushstrokes of the artist, who lets rest on the support a large amount of matter. José Viola Gamón adopted the name by which he is known, Manuel Viola, after the Civil War. A member of the El Paso group, his painting is characterized by an informalist and colorist treatment, in line with the avant-garde developed in Spain from the 50's onwards. He began studying Philosophy and Letters in Barcelona, but was forced to abandon them due to the war. His first drawings date from these years. After the war he went into exile in France, where he wrote for the surrealist poetry magazine "La main à plume". There he began to exhibit his works in the exhibitions of the so-called Spanish School of Paris. He returns to Spain in 1949, and in 1958 his truly personal style begins, at the same time he joins the avant-garde pictorial group El Paso, to which belonged, among others, Antonio Saura, Rafael Canogar, Luis Feito and Manolo Millares. He begins to express himself through an abstract painting of great expressionist character and great care of color. He definitely leaves behind the figuration that prevailed until then in his work. Throughout his life he was awarded numerous prizes, such as the Condado de San Jorge Prize, the Lissones Prize (Milan), or the Gold Medal of the City of Zaragoza. He exhibited in the most important galleries in Spain and also abroad, in cities such as Oslo, New York, Venice, Sao Paulo and Houston. While he was still alive, important retrospective exhibitions of his work were held: in 1965 at the Dirección de Bellas Artes de Madrid, in 1971 at the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Madrid, in 1972 at the Lonja de Zaragoza, in 1983 at the Armas Gallery in Miami, and in 1986 in Houston. After his death, anthological exhibitions of his work continued to be held in international galleries and museums. Manuel Viola's work can be seen in the Reina Sofia Museum, the Museum of Modern Art in Cologne, the Museum of Fine Arts in Bilbao, the Guggenheim in New York and Bilbao, and the Museum of Spanish Abstract Art in Cuenca, among many others.