Gerardo Delgado was a leading light of Spanish abstract geometric pictorial art from the end of the 1960s. While he was studying at the Seville School of Architecture (1959-1967), Delgado experimented with painting that he resolutely evolved towards rational abstraction at the end of the decade and his modular works date from that period. They are based on simple, volumetric, geometric forms in plain colours that can be manipulated by the viewer. The result is a series of open pieces that can be combined in different ways, such as his Mural for the Mudapelo School (1968). These principles led him to take part in the Automatic Generation of Art Forms at the Computing Centre at the Complutense University of Madrid. During the 1970s, Delgado’s work focused on expanding the pictorial space and colour with installations comprising large pieces of fabric hanging from the ceiling. He later added sketchy drawings to them, for example in Painted Fabrics (1976). In the 1980s, gestural forms appeared in his drawings and the figurative act appeared on indefinite backgrounds and as an anchoring element with the real, as occurs in his In the White City series (1982-1985). Moreover, the objects he comes across are included as a further element of the pictorial. Since the end of the 1990s, Delgado has returned to geometric abstraction using grids to structure the paintings and playing with expanses of colour, for example in the Routes series, which he began in 1997.

Delgado was included in some major landmark exhibitions including the ‘New Generation’ at the Edurne Gallery (Madrid, 1967); a show at the Computing Centre (Madrid, 1970); and events such as the Pamplona Encounters (1972). Since his first solo show at La Pasarela Gallery (Seville, 1968), his work has regularly been exhibited in Spanish galleries and centres such as the Professional Association of Architects (Seville, 1984); the Seville Contemporary Art Museum (1993- 1994); the Bishops’ Palace Exhibition Rooms (Malaga, 1993- 94); Cadiz Museum (2001); Caja de Burgos Exhibition Venue (2003); the Damián Bayón Centre at the Institute of the Americas (Santa Fe, Granada, 2010- 2011); and the Andalusia Contemporary Art Centre (Seville, 2017).

Roberto Díaz