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

Collection

Gabinete de acículas (Serie) [Cabinet of Conifer Needles (Series)]

Image caption
MIGUEL ÁNGEL BLANCO

Gabinete de acículas (Serie) [Cabinet of Conifer Needles (Series)]  Serie

  • 1992
  • Ink prints of conifer needle stamps on Lokta bark paper (four works in the Collection)
  • 51,5 x 82,5 cm each
  • Cat. D_S_1
  • Acquired in 1992
By:
Beatriz Espejo

Cabinet of Conifer Needles I-IV (1992) is a set of drawings forming part of a large series made by stamping prints of conifer needles in different shades of India ink onto handmade paper. The artist spent several months collecting the needles in different parts of Spain and elsewhere, looking for the rarest and most diverse specimens. Using some of those he considered most special, he made stamps of individual needles or groups of needles with wooden bases and handles, to create a giant forest printing press. In some cases, after applying the stamps to the paper, he dilutes certain areas to create particular atmospheres or bring out hidden images.

Beatriz Espejo

 
By:
Beatriz Espejo
Miguel Ángel Blanco
Madrid 1958

The work of Miguel Ángel Blanco centres on nature. He began his most important project, The Library of the Forest, in 1986. It consists of box-books containing botanical, mineral, animal and insect items taken from nature, sealed behind glass, with some introductory pages containing drawings, engravings and photographic prints. Blanco sees these box-books as microcosms, new landscapes that express nature in all its phenomenology and in all its geographical and symbolic breadth. Blanco lived for many years in the Sierra de Guadarrama, his favourite artistic stomping ground. In 2006, La Casa Encendida in Madrid staged an exhibition of his work entitled 'Visions of Guadarrama. Miguel Ángel Blanco and the pioneering artists of the Sierra'. The show featured his box-books alongside paintings by some of the outstanding nineteenth-century Spanish landscape artists who had found their inspiration in these same mountains. Several selections from his Library of the Forest have been exhibited at the National Library of Madrid, the National Print Museum of Mexico City, the César Manrique Foundation in Lanzarote, the National Museum of Engraving in Madrid and the Abbey of Santo Domingo de Silos (Reina Sofía Museum), among other venues.

In 2008, Blanco was commissioned by the Ministry of Culture to create a tribute to the dead beech tree in the garden of the Lázaro Galdiano Foundation in Madrid, where he also staged an exhibition entitled 'Fallen Tree', focusing on the relationship between tree and time. In 2013 the Prado Museum presented his Natural Histories project, which references the original purpose of Juan de Villanueva's building as a natural science museum. In the exhibition, Blanco drew links between some of the most important paintings housed in the Prado, historical specimens from all the natural kingdoms and his own work, to create a remarkable contemporary Wunderkammer. In 2015 he curated 'The Illusion of the American Frontier' at the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid. In 1995 he was awarded the National Engraving Award and in 2004 the Villa de Madrid 'Lucio Muñoz' Engraving Award.

Beatriz Espejo