Albert Ràfols-Casamada is one of the best known exponents of the movement known in Spain as lyrical abstraction. He dropped out of an Architecture degree to join the Tárrega Academy in 1945. Years later he moved to Paris, where he stayed until 1954. There he met Eugenio d’Ors and Joaquín Torres García, whom he greatly admired. His career is closely linked to the lessons that he learned close to home, from his father the painter Albert Ràfols Cullerés, the Cercle de Maillol group and the French Institute of Barcelona.

After his time in Paris, he moved back to Barcelona in the 1950s and became one of the promoters of the Eina School, where he taught the theory of colour and served as headmaster for many years. This was a crucial period of his career, in which he moved from figurative to abstract art. In his own words, this 'happened as a result of my studies and work, particularly my reflections on art media, studios and landscape painting [...], which come down to four basic elements: colour, the painted surface, structure and rhythm'. Ràfols- Casamada's abstract works show a liking for collage and objects. The gradual consolidation of his style, which he honed more and more over the course of his career, resulted from the formulation of successive hypotheses concerning order, structure and colour.

He won the National Award for Plastic Arts in 1980 in recognition of his whole career. His work has been shown at the Vila Casas Foundation (Barcelona, 2016), the Esteban Vicente Museum (Segovia, 2016), the Fernández-Braso Gallery (Madrid, 2016), the Cervantes Institute in Paris (2016), the Perramo Foundation (Ventalló, Gerona, 2015), the Espai l’Abadia (Sant Joan de les Abadesses, Gerona, 2014) and the Am Park Gallery (Frankfurt, Germany, 2013). In 2001 the Museum of Contemporary Art of Barcelona staged a retrospective of his work.

Beatriz Herráez