Pablo Palazuelo was a painter, sculptor and engraver, and was considered to be one of the most important figures of Spanish geometric abstraction in the second half of the 20^th century. He began to study Architecture in Madrid (1932-1934). He then attended the School of Arts and Crafts in Oxford, where he passed the Intermediate Exam of the Royal Institute of British Architects (1934-1936). From 1939 onwards, he devoted himself entirely to painting, initially under the influence of the Cubists and of the work of Paul Klee. He then moved on to pure abstraction in 1948, into which he delved further thanks to a grant in Paris, where he would live until 1969 and where he would become internationally known with works based on observing natural structures, using cellular elements or crystallisations provided by scientific photography. In Paris he met Eduardo Chillida and Ellsworth Kelly and was invited to take part in the May Salons from 1948 to 1950, as well as being part of a collective exhibition at the mythical Denise René Gallery. In the 1950s he embarked on an experimental search that culminated in the creation of a legible style on the fringes of orthodox abstractionism. It was unveiled at his first show at the Maeght Gallery in Paris in 1955, and he regularly exhibited at its different venues until the 1980s.

Palazuelo was influenced by Cubism, Bauhaus, Neoplasticism, constructivist rationalism, science, the writings of Gaston Bachelard and Mircea Eliade on the cosmological and psychic implications, and oriental cognitive premises. A diaphanous, intuitive ‘trans-geometry’ – as he called it – of variations and the ability to produce carefully achieved colours, lines and polygons led to the pinnacle of his work. In 1969 he returned to Spain; he settled in Monroy (Cáceres) in 1974, where he embarked on a new stage of exploration with the introduction of time as a factor when he approached pictorial representation as musical notation by means of graphic signs. After 1979, he spent more time on sculpture, in which he developed the visual concepts of his painting.

His work was exhibited in important solo shows, including one at La Chaux- de-Fonds Museum of Fine Arts (Switzerland, 1972); his first retrospective was shown at the Reina Sofía (Madrid, 1995) and the Valencia Institute of Modern Art (Valencia, 1995); there was a further solo show at the Reina Sofía (Madrid, 2005); and his last major retrospective was at the Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art, with travelling exhibitions at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao and the Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo (2006- 2008). His accolades include the Kandinsky Painting Prize (1952); the Gold Medal for Merit in Fine Arts (1982); the Comunidad de Madrid Prize for Visual Arts (1994); and the Velázquez Award for Fine Arts (2004).

Roberto Díaz