Helena Almeida: 'Seduzir' [To Seduce, 2002] (detail)

Collection

El músico y la modelo V [The Musician and The Model V]

Image caption
MIGUEL ÁNGEL CAMPANO

El músico y la modelo V [The Musician and The Model V]

  • 1983
  • Oil on canvas
  • 101 x 104,7 cm
  • Cat. P_293
  • Acquired in 1983
By:
Carlos Martín

In the context of the return to painting of the 1980s, and as a means of gauging himself against the past through a personal renewal of the pictorial language, Miguel Ángel Campano sought inspiration in the works of master painters. Several of the works in the Banco de España Collection reflect that moment of retreating and advancing in that decade and the artist’s extraordinary fruitful sojourn in Paris. This is the case of The Musician and the Model V (1983) and La Grappa XI (1986), both based on works by the painter of the French classist school Nicolas Poussin. The first of those works, Country Concerto, may have been inspired by Numa Pompilius and the Nymph Egeria (1631-1633, Condé de Chantilly Museum), where a woman in an identical position is entertained by a musician, in this case a flautist rather than the viola da gamba performer preferred by Campano, and The Great Bacchanal with a Lute Player (1627-1628, Louvre). More interested in Poussin’s mechanisms of composition than the theme of these works, in The Musician and The Model V Campano again uses part of the vocabulary of signs of one of his best-known series, Vowels, produced in the late 1970s and early 1980s; a language that is even clearer in the watercolour Untitled (1982), where the loose scripts seem to be trying to create a scene. This personal grammar was his short-lived departure from abstraction in pursuit of an examination of the past; The Musician and The Model V, painted at the same time as Vowels, could be said to reflect a certain restructuring of what were previously freer and more scattered shapes to form a more recognisable scene, in a line that he was to develop more fully from that moment onwards. 

Carlos Martín

 
By:
Roberto Díaz
Miguel Ángel Campano
Madrid 1948 - Madrid 2018

A leading figure in the renewal of Spanish painting in the 1980s, Miguel Ángel Campano’s work, the style of which did not fall into any set category, was based on exploring the tensions between abstraction and figurations, tradition and modernity, to create his own language. He started studying at the Madrid School of Architecture, but soon dropped out and moved to Valencia in 1968, where he began his artistic training at the San Carlos School of Fine Arts. During his initial interest in automatic processes in painting, Campano met Fernando Zóbel in 1971, who introduced him to the Cuenca circle of artists, including Gerardo Rueda and Gustavo Torner. That would draw his work into the field of geometric abstraction and lead hm further into the playful and constructive aspects of painting. He moved to the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris. During his time there, from 1976 to 1977, his work shifted away from geometrization to a form of expressionist action painting with roots in the US. In 1980, Campano was awarded a grant from the Juan March Foundation to further his studies. He began to explore French painting, from the works of Nicolas Poussin or Eugène Delacroix to the modernism of Paul Cézanne, which led to series such as La Grappa (1985-1986), and also literary figures such as Arthur Rimbaud, in the Vowels series (1979-1981). In 1994 and 1995, he travelled to India, an experience that was reflected in his paintings from that time. In 1996, he embarked on a black and white phase which lasted until 1999, when he returned to colour and gestures in works on Indian fabrics (loongis). Between 2001 and 2002, Campano produced a series of paintings inspired by the works of José Guerrero, and has continued to explore abstract art since then.

Since his first show in 1969, his work has formed part of key exhibitions for the Spanish painting renewal movement, such as ‘1980’ at the Juana Mordó Gallery (Madrid, 1979) and ‘Madrid D.F’ at Madrid Municipal Museum (1980); he has also featured in many overseas exhibitions of Spanish art from the time. Amongst the many individual shows at galleries, special mention should be made of those organised by the Valencia Institute of Modern Art (IVAM) (Valencia, 1990); the Maison des Arts Georges Pompidou (Cajarc, France, 1995) and the José Guerrero Centre (Granada, 2002), where his work has been displayed alongside that of José Guerrero. Campano was awarded the National Award for Plastic Arts and the peak of his acclaim was a major retrospective organised by the Reina Sofia at the Velázquez Palace exhibition hall in Madrid in 1999.

Roberto Díaz

 
«Campaon: Painting 1980-1990» (Valencia, 1990-1991).
Alfonso E. Pérez Sánchez & Julián Gállego Banco de España. Colección de pintura, Madrid, Banco de España, 1985. Alfonso E. Pérez Sánchez, Julián Gállego & María José Alonso Colección de pintura del Banco de España, Madrid, Banco de España, 1988. Carmen Alborch, Nicolás Sánchez Durá & Juan Manuel Bonet Campano. Pintura 1980-1990, Valencia, IVAM, 1990. Vv.Aa. Colección Banco de España. Catálogo razonado, Madrid, Banco de España, 2019, vol. 2.