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

Collection

Teku rojo mayor [Large Red Teku]

Image caption
LUCIO MUÑOZ

Teku rojo mayor [Large Red Teku]

  • 1989
  • Painting and fillers on hardboard
  • 250 x 250 cm
  • Cat. P_430
  • Acquired in 1989
By:
Frederic Montornés

Muñoz was very familiar with the bases of art autre and particularly with the work of artists such as Jean Dubuffet, Jean Fautrier, Pierre Soulages, Wols and Antoni Tàpies. Faithful to the language of abstraction, he is considered to be one of the leading exponents of abstract informalism, despite a shift in his later years towards something more akin to figurative art. He experimented with wood and burnt paper, the materials that were to become the hallmark of almost all of his art. As a result, his work developed around the expression arising from the elementality of matter. Muñoz had no qualms about piercing, tearing, burning, carving or moulding his materials to evoke the natural essence that lay behind the aura of mystery inherent to his compositions.

This piece was made in 1989, at a time when he was experimenting with wet paper, papermaking, dialogues with wood and plastic, with light forming the key aspect in his work. It is a clear example of the importance he gave to administering colour in evoking the drama of our inner world or that kind of space for meditation which, imbued with a condensed notion time, he devised in order to find answers to the questions he posed. The purpose is to provide answers. Whether they come or not, they always seem to pass by, always (as so often occurs with artists of the stature of Lucio Muñoz) raising increasingly complex questions.

Frederic Montornés

 
By:
Frederic Montornés
Lucio Muñoz
Madrid 1929 - Madrid 1998

Lucio Muñoz trained to be a painter at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando in Madrid (1949-1954) under the tutelage of Eduardo Chicharro, the founder and a leading theorist of Postism (a marginal avant-garde movement that emerged in Spain in 1945, which sought to synthesise all preceding literary avant-gardes in pursuit of the supremacy of the imagination, the use of sensory materials, the destruction of prejudice, etc.) In 1956, Muñoz received a grant from the French Government to travel to Paris, where he encountered art autre and the work of artists such as Jean Dubuffet, Antoni Tàpies and Jean Fautrier.

Initially, he made collages on paper, but around 1957 he switched to wood. Later, he returned to paper, making different tests with increasingly organic sketches and studies. In 1984, he launched on a third stage, experimenting with wet paper and papermaking and establishing a dialogue between them and wood or plastic. In this new phase, light was to play a fundamentally important part.

Muñoz's first solo exhibition was at the Galería Dintel (Santander, 1955). His work was subsequently displayed in galleries and institutions in cities around the world, including El Ateneo (Madrid, 1958); the Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam, 1959); the Venice Biennale (1960 and 1976); the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum (1965); Galerie Buchholz (Munich, 1967); Casa de las Américas (Havana, 1967); Documenta 5 (Kassel, Germany, 1972); the Extremadura Museum of Contemporary Art (Cáceres, 1981); the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris (Paris, 1987); the Museo Reina Sofía (Madrid, 1988) the Virreina Palace (Barcelona, 1989); the Fundação Serralves (Porto, Portugal, 1991); the Tate Gallery Liverpool (United Kingdom, 1992); and the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao (Bilbao, 1998). In 1999, the exhibition 'Lucio Muñoz, 1950- 1998' toured the FOCUS Foundation (Seville), the Santander Central Hispano Foundation (Madrid) and the San Telmo Museum (Donostia/San Sebastián); In 2011 the Museo Reina Sofía staged an exhibition of Muñoz's work entitled 'Obra sobre papel' ['Work on Paper']. Muñoz made two murals for the EU building in Brussels (1995) and the chamber of the Madrid Assembly in Vallecas (1997- 1998), the latter of which he completed shortly before his death. He received the National Award for Plastic Arts in 1983 and the Gold Medal for Merit in Fine Arts in 1993.

Frederic Montornés

 
«ARCO International Contemporary Art Fair», ARCO (Madrid, 1989). «20 Contemporary Spanish Painters in the Banco de España Collection», Sala de Exposiciones de la Estación Marítima Xunta de Galicia (La Coruña, 1990). «20 Contemporary Spanish Painters in the Banco de España Collection», Palacio del Almudí (Murcia, 1990). «20 Contemporary Spanish Painters in the Banco de España Collection», Sala Amós Salvador (Logroño, 1990). «20 Contemporary Spanish Painters in the Banco de España Collection», Museo de Navarra (Pamplona/Iruña, 1990-1991).
Vv.Aa. Arco 89. Feria Internacional de Arte Contemporáneo, Madrid, Arco/Ifema, 1989. Vv.Aa. 20 pintores españoles contemporáneos en la colección del Banco de España, Madrid, Banco de España, 1990. Vv.Aa. Colección Banco de España. Catálogo razonado, Madrid, Banco de España, 2019, vol. 3.