MIQUEL BARCELÓ ARTIQUES (Felanitx, Mallorca, 1957). "Mar i pop", 1980. Watercolour and pencil on paper. Signed, dated and titled in pencil in the lower margin. Measurements: 29 x 36 cm; 69 x 75 cm (frame). Considered one of the most sought-after Spanish artists of all time, Miquel Barceló feels a special attraction for the iconography of the animal world and, more specifically, for "the romantic and desolate relationship of man with the sea and its nature". For Barceló, the prehistoric world, with its animal representation, takes man back to his origins. Animals, according to the artist, are perfect beings, from the moment they are born to the moment they die. A painter and sculptor, Barceló began his training at the School of Arts and Crafts in Palma de Mallorca, where he studied between 1972 and 1973. In 1974, at the age of seventeen, he made his solo debut at the Galería Picarol in Mallorca. That same year he moved to Barcelona, where he enrolled at the Sant Jordi School of Fine Arts, and made his first trip to Paris. In the French capital he discovered the work of Paul Klee, Fautrier, Wols and Dubuffet, as well as "art brut", a style that was to exert an important influence on his first paintings. During these years he reads extensively, and is enriched by works as diverse as the writings of Breton and the surrealists, Lucio Fontana's "White Manifesto" and Arnold Hauser's "Social History of Literature and Art". In 1976 he held his first solo exhibition in a museum: "Cadaverina 15" at the Museum of Mallorca, consisting of a montage of 225 wooden boxes with glass lids, with decomposing organic materials inside. That same year, back in Mallorca, he joined the Taller Lunàtic group and took part in its social, political and cultural protest actions. In 1977 he made a second trip to Paris, and also visited London and Amsterdam. That same year he exhibits for the first time in Barcelona, and meets Javier Mariscal, who becomes one of his best friends in the city. Together with him and the photographer Antoni Catany, as a member of the group "Neón de Suro", he takes part in exhibitions in Canada and California, and collaborates with the publication of the magazine of the same name. It was also in 1977 that he received his first large-scale painting commission: a mural for the dining room of a hotel in Cala Millor, Mallorca. The following year, at the age of twenty-one, he sold his first works to some collectors and galleries, and finally moved to Barcelona. His international recognition began in the early eighties, giving a definitive boost to his career with his participation in the São Paulo Biennial (1981) and the Documenta in Kassel (1982). In 1986 he was awarded the Premio Nacional de Artes Plásticas, and since then his work has been recognised by the most important awards, such as the Prince of Asturias Prize for the Arts (2003) and the Sorolla Prize of the Hispanic Society of America in New York (2007). Barceló is currently represented in the most important contemporary art museums in the world, such as the MoMA in New York, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Guggenheim in Bilbao, the Marugami Hirai in Japan, the Reina Sofía in Madrid, the Patio Herreriano in Valladolid, the CAPC in Bordeaux, the Carré d'Art in Nimes, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Caracas and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, among others.