LUCIO MUÑOZ MARTÍNEZ (Madrid, 1929 - 1998). "II Secret Portrait", 1974. Oil and other materials on panel. Signed on the front. Signed, dated and titled on the back. Measurements: 100 x 81 cm., 105 x 86 cm. (frame). One of the most outstanding exponents of Spanish Informalism, a pioneer of abstraction in the country, Lucio Muñoz began his career focusing on landscape painting, one of the most cultivated genres in Spain at the time, largely thanks to the influence of Benjamín Palencia. He began his training at the San Fernando Academy of Fine Arts, where he was a pupil of Eduardo Chicharro. After completing his studies he came into contact with the Madrid realists Antonio López and the López Hernández brothers. He made his individual debut in 1955, with an exhibition at the Dintel gallery in Santander consisting of works already close to abstraction, which reveal the influences of Klee, Rufino Tamayo, Ben Nicholson and Torres García. That same year he takes part in a collective exhibition organised by the Dirección General de Bellas Artes, together with Antonio López, Julio L. Hernández and Francisco López. The following year he obtained a grant from the French State to complete his training in Paris. There he studied the works of Fautrier, Dubuffet, Wols and Tàpies, and his style drifted definitively towards Informalism, leaving behind the initial influences of Cubism and Expressionism. From this point onwards Muñoz became fully committed to Abstract Expressionism. He returned to Spain and held two exhibitions that tell us about the establishment of his personal style and place him squarely in the Spanish avant-garde. The first took place at the Fernando Fe gallery in Madrid in 1957, and the second was held the following year at the Ateneo in the same city. His material painting, his original, sensitive and personal use of materials, gives his compositions a poetic and lyrical dimension. The importance Muñoz attaches to the support itself stands out in his production; the artist perforates, tears, makes incisions, etc., approaching Informalism in a totally personal way. His works, most of which are colourful, represent the purest informalism. After an initial stage of experimentation with the most diverse materials (burnt paper, wood, etc.), in his final phase his painting became less aggressive, due to the use of materials with less relief and a palette tending towards monochrome. During these years his influences broadened to include the black paintings of Goya, the work of Velázquez, Gregorian chant with its solemn depth, the sober and infinite landscapes of Castile, the liberated energy of flamenco and the engravings of Albrecht Dürer. In 1961 he held his first solo exhibition abroad at the Joachim Gallery in Chicago, and two years later he exhibited for the first time in New York at the Staemplfi Gallery. Since then he has had solo exhibitions all over Spain, as well as in cities such as Buenos Aires, Frankfurt, Lisbon, Munich, London, Havana, Paris, Berlin and Brussels. From the late sixties onwards Muñoz gradually began his most fantastic and nocturnal period, a trend that would continue until 1981. The exhibition held that year at the Juana Mordó gallery heralded the change towards a flatter, lighter language, such as that found in the series of large-format colour engravings that the artist produced between 1983 and 1984, prints that would serve as a means of experimentation for him to gain knowledge that he would later apply to his painting. Around the same time he was awarded the National Plastic Arts Prize (1983), and his language began to focus on an aesthetic closer to landscape, naturalistic and lyrical, again integrating wood as another element. Shortly afterwards, in 1989, the Reina Sofía Museum in Madrid dedicated the first anthological exhibition of his career to him (in 2001 it devoted an exhibition to his work on paper). In addition, Lucio Muñoz received other important awards in Spain