174 - VÍCTOR MIRA (Zaragoza, 1949 – Munich, 2003).

VÍCTOR MIRA (Zaragoza, 1949 – Munich, 2003). “Beethoven’s 5th Symphony,” 1997. Gouache on paper. Signed, dated, and titled on the reverse. Measurements: 40 x 30 cm; 48 x 38 cm (frame). “Beethoven’s 5th Symphony” is one of Víctor Mira’s major series from the 1990s. Mira does not seek to visually represent Beethoven’s music, but rather to transform its structure and symbolic meaning into pictorial material. In particular, he repeatedly incorporates the four opening notes of the Fifth Symphony—the famous “fate motif”—as a kind of graphic element or visual sign. A sculptor, painter, printmaker, and writer, he was largely self-taught. At the age of eighteen, he held his first solo exhibition at the N’Art Gallery in Zaragoza, which was also the first outdoor sculpture exhibition ever held in that city. Shortly thereafter, he moved to Madrid, where he exhibited in 1973 at the Pol Verdié Gallery. After spending some time divided between Madrid and Germany, he settled in Barcelona in 1977. In 1979, he held his first solo exhibition in Munich at the Tanit Gallery, and the following year he showed his work in the United States at the George Staempfli Gallery in New York. From then on, his international career took off, with exhibitions in Germany, the United States, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Sweden, Norway, Colombia, France, Belgium, and Austria, while he continued to exhibit regularly in Spain. In 2003, shortly before his death, he received the award for best living Spanish artist at the ARCO Art Fair. The most recent retrospective exhibition dedicated to this artist was held in Düsseldorf, Germany, at the Beck & Eggeling Gallery. Works by Mira are held in museums and private collections around the world, notably the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Reina Sofía National Art Center, the MACBA, the Fine Arts Museums of Vitoria and Zaragoza, the Beulas Foundation in Huesca, and the ICO Collections Museum in Madrid.