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

Collection

El viaje de invierno [Winter Journey]

Image caption
CARLOS LEÓN

El viaje de invierno [Winter Journey]

  • 1988
  • Acrylic on canvas
  • 204,7 x 274 cm
  • Cat. P_559
  • Acquired in 1994
By:
Beatriz Herráez

Winter Journey (1988) is part of the 'acrylic on fabric' series produced by Carlos León in the 1980s. At first, he focused on acrylics and oils on fabric and canvas, but his later works often resorted to such widely varying materials as Dibond (industrially processed aluminium) and polyester. The sharp contrast between classical style painting and 'modern' supports is such a frequent feature of his work that it has become an identifying trait. He has also often taken an interest in other media such as video and photography, but says that he wishes to approach them 'against the grain, as a painter'. His oeuvre also includes montages and mural paintings.

Using sequences of 'tests and trials', he has developed a rigorous style that contains echoes of 'primitive' painting, art informel, abstract expressionism and the graphism of Oriental art. Texture, action painting and the use of the artist's own body are all features of Winter Journey, an image that shows the poetry, the sensitivity and the beauty that can be found throughout his output.

In an interview to mark a major exhibition of his work curated by María de Corral in 2015, Carlos León explained the main lines of exploration involved in his work; 'one is landscape-related and the other has to do with flesh, with carnality, with the existential'. His crude, unconventional landscapes are, as he himself states, never figurative but rather encoded in the language of abstraction and closely linked to the history of art in general and painting in particular. The terms 'abstract' and 'unconventional' are relevant in the early work Winter Journey, which also reflects the 'coming together of brain and heart' stressed by critic Javier Maderuelo in a text written in 2012, in a clear allusion to the production-related tension that runs through León's work.

Beatriz Herráez

 
By:
Beatriz Herráez
Carlos León
Ceuta 1948

Carlos León began to study Medicine in Valladolid, but dropped out in 1968 to pursue a career as an artist. His first solo exhibition was at the Jacobo Gallery in Valladolid in 1970. This marked the beginning of a journey that led him to the free workshops of L’École des Beaux-Art in Paris, where he spent 1972 and came across the Supports/Surfaces movement. In the years that followed he took part in major exhibitions such as '10 Abstractos' ['10 Abstracts'] at the Buades Gallery in Madrid (1975) and 'Vanguardia artística y realidad social, 1936-1976' ['Artistic avant-garde and social reality, 1936-1976'] at the Spanish Pavilion at the Venice Biennale (1976). In 1979 he moved back to Paris for a year, under a grant from the Juan March Foundation. In 1985 he secured a grant from the Spanish American Committee to spend a year in New York, where he was tutored by Anthony Caro. On his return to Spain, he gave a workshop on Current Art organised by the Círculo de Bellas Artes and was appointed as a lecturer at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Cuenca. In 1995 he went back to New York, where he remained until 2002, when he returned to Spain and lived in Segovia for the rest of his life.

His work is based on a mature reflection on the languages of abstraction. He is considered one of the soundest of all Spanish artists. Critic Francisco Calvo Serraller has described his work as the result of 'the perfect synthesis of expressionist spontaneity, elegance, sensuality and mystery...'. He has a profound knowledge of the techniques of his discipline and of the history of art, and he has applied that knowledge with determination throughout his career, from his earliest canvases associated with the Supports/Surfaces movement in France and with American abstract painting to his current works, which reflect a highly personal style.

His latest exhibitions include events at the Esteban Vicente Museum (Segovia, 2017), the Palacio de los Condes de Gabia (Granada, 2016), the Alcalá 31 Gallery (Madrid, 2015) and the Newcastle Foundation (Fuentes de Olmedo, Valladolid, 2015). In 2014 his works were shown at the Centre for Contemporary Art of Galicia in Santiago de Compostela, the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando in Madrid, the National Museum of Sculpture in Valladolid and the Casa de Velázquez in Madrid.

Beatriz Herráez

 
«The Memory of Water. Carlos León» (Santiago de Compostela, 1994).
Fernando Castro Flórez Carlos León, la memoria del agua, Santiago de Compostela, Auditorio de Galicia, 1995. Vv.Aa. Colección Banco de España. Catálogo razonado, Madrid, Banco de España, 2019, vol. 3.