Eduardo Sanz was born in the maritime city of Santander in 1928. Viewing these two works, one is left in no doubt that the sea formed part of his DNA. Nonetheless, it is sometimes difficult to comprehend how he managed so successfully to understand, assimilate and capture with such clarity the rise and fall of the tide and the mechanics of the waves.

Sanz first achieved fame as an abstract informalist —possibly influenced by the recently formed El Paso group in the 1950s. However, he soon abandoned abstract art for expressionist figuration and went on to flirt with a certain post-cubism. After this first referential stage, Sanz began to explore new materials and techniques. He tried to adopt a three-dimensional approach using overlapping planes, for which purpose he found mirrors and glass ideally suited.

Sanz was determined to chart an independent path for himself and remained outside the prevailing trends of his time. His work evolved and in the mid-1970s, he began to produce Las cartas de amar [The Letters of Loving], based on naval signalling flags. This led him to explore the field of linguistics and experimental writing. After a four-year period in which his painting took a back seat to creative research, Sanz’s interest in painting was rekindled and he began to catalogue all the lighthouses on the Spanish coast. Thereafter, his communion with the sea was to determine not only the theme of his later work, but also the hyper-realistic language to be seen in the two works in the Banco de España collection. More than an image, one might say that these works represent the heartbeat of the sea through a continuous and imperishable movement.

Frederic Montornés