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

Collection

Tríptico [Triptych]

Image caption
GUILLERMO LLEDÓ

Tríptico [Triptych]

  • 1979
  • Acrylic on hardboard (Triptych)
  • 45 x 195 x 3,3 cm
  • Cat. P_285
  • Acquired in 1982
By:
Carlos Martín

'I want forms to be simple and clear, and easily held. They need to emerge once the accidental has been removed and have the properties of a schematic and the value of the archetypical’. This declaration of intent is by Guillermo Lledó, who up to 1976 produced hyper-realist paintings of urban themes but then focused on object-related concerns which led him gradually away from painting per se and towards new conceptual strategies of sculpture. That path, which he alone followed in Spanish art, led to works with an air of arte povera, such as this Triptych (1979) in which the colours show rust, as if the material had been deliberately aged, to suggest the shift from intentionally grubby urban realism to an object in the literal sense of the word. Mariano Navarro has this to say of Lledó's move from painting to sculpture: 'both this paintings and his sculptures frequently feature doors, man-hole covers, hydrants, netting, etc. One of the main characteristics of his aesthetic mindset is precisely that there is no distinction between the two fields. From the late 1970s onwards, Lledó shifted towards a kind of minimalism, but without forgetting the teachings of constructivism. He brought to his work a particular sensitivity to materials and a capability for containment and austerity. It has been rightly said of him that he turns his materials into the concept of his work'.

Carlos Martín

 
By:
Roberto Díaz
Guillermo Lledó
Madrid 1946

Spanish-born Guillermo Lledó has been working in painting and sculpture since the 1970s, and has become a reference point for Spanish art in those fields. He studied at the School of Fine Arts of San Fernando (1964-1968) and obtained a PhD in Fine Arts from the Complutense University in Madrid (1997). He began to paint in the 1970s, using a hyper-realist technique in depicting objects, based on photos that he himself took, mainly in urban settings (fences, traffic signs, man-hole covers) and transferred to canvas out of context, so that he identified the world of objects with representation itself, seeking as much abstraction as his hyper-realist treatment of his subjects permits. In the early 1980s his painting began to shift towards geometric themes, with a certain minimalist neutrality in formal structures that recall architectural elements, and towards the use of industrial materials, as in his series Painted Wood (1981- 1982). In the mid 1980s he moved fully into sculpture, using materials (iron, reinforced glass, fibre-cement) and formal structures reminiscent of industrial elements predominated by a suspension of enunciation and a profound sense of emptiness and silence linked to the contemporary.

Since the 1970s, Lledó has exhibited regularly at the Egam Gallery in Madrid, and there have been solo exhibitions of his work at venues including the Palacio de los Condes de Gabia (Granada, 1987), the CAI Luzán Gallery (Zaragoza, 1995), the Barjola Museum (Gijón, 1998) and the Caja de Burgos Contemporary Art Centre (Burgos, 2006). He has also taken part in major group exhibitions, such as the 1st Salón de los 16 event at the Spanish Museum of Contemporary Art (Madrid, 1981) and major shows of Spanish art at the Juan March Foundation (Madrid, 1985) and the Museo Reina Sofía (Madrid, 2001). He has received several distinctions, including the First Prize for Painting at the Alexandria International Bienniale (1979).

Roberto Díaz

 
«Guillermo Lledó» (Madrid, 1981).
Alfonso E. Pérez Sánchez & Julián Gállego Banco de España. Colección de pintura, Madrid, Banco de España, 1985. Alfonso E. Pérez Sánchez, Julián Gállego & María José Alonso Colección de pintura del Banco de España, Madrid, Banco de España, 1988. Vv.Aa. Colección Banco de España. Catálogo razonado, Madrid, Banco de España, 2019, vol. 3.