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

Collection

Verde [Green]

Image caption
MANUEL SALINAS

Verde [Green]

  • 1987
  • Oil on canvas
  • 209,5 x 200 cm
  • Cat. P_497
  • Acquired in 1991
By:
Frederic Montornés

After initially embarking his career in the field of figurative art, Manuel Salinas progressively evolved towards an American-inspired lyrical abstraction based on the search for colour and form. He was determined to remove from his painting anything that did not reflect plastic expression. He was known for developing a range of evocative essays based on geometric shapes, his application of colour, his interest in architecture from an early age and his reflection of different forms of tension between order and gesture and between reason and emotion. From the first half of the 1970s, these essays, while restricting him to the universe of abstraction, also allowed him to develop an energetic brushstroke and rapid gesture that were characteristic of the lexicon of abstract expressionism. Although this shift first became from the early 1980s, over time he consolidated it even further. He expanded his palette and brought a new play of textures and vibrations to the order that always underlay the spontaneity of his gesture and his freedom of colour.

Salinas never attempted to introduce anything that could not be transmitted through colour and form. Nonetheless, this work is a clear example of the tension between his pictorial work and his tendency towards introspection. Normally reluctant to name his works (in order not to create 'literature') he nonetheless titled this one Verde [Green] (1987). The main features of the picture are two intersecting lines, two large strokes like inverted arches and four dramatic masses of dark-coloured paint. The artist appears to work the four resulting areas of colour separately; depending on the way he applies the oil and the play of vibrations he manages to recreate, he achieves a kind of romantic conception based on what might be the outline of an architectural space. Architecture —and by extension urban planning, furniture design and interior decoration— was always one of Salinas's hidden interests, as synthesised in his fondness for geometric shapes and volumes in space. Despite the marks on his surfaces, the noise of his vibrant strokes and the firmness of the gestures with which the work is executed, one can intuit Salinas' yearning for order and balance and an inclination towards the geometric as the visual image of his conception of both the world and nature.

Frederic Montornés

 
By:
Frederic Montornés
Manuel Salinas
Seville 1940 - Seville 2021

Considered to be one of the great renovators of Andalusian painting in the second half of the twentieth century, Manuel Salinas began his career as a figurative artist. However, following a trip to the United States in 1970, he moved towards an American-inspired lyrical abstraction, and one of the hallmarks of his subsequent work was his incessant search for colour and form. Salinas defined himself as a strictly abstract painter.

His first solo exhibition was held in 1962 at the Galería la Rábida (Seville). His work has since been shown in Spanish and international art galleries and institutions such as the Centro Gres (Barcelona, 1964); the Seville Museum of Contemporary Art (1982); the Spanish Museum of Contemporary Art (Madrid, 1982); the Casa de Velázquez (Madrid, 1984); the College of Architects of Seville (1987); the Lonja de Pescado Municipal Exhibition Hall (Alicante, 1996); the Salón Avianca (Barranquilla, Colombia, 1996); the National Museum of Art of Romania (Bucharest, 2003); the Danuviana Museum (Bratislava, 2003); and the RAC Foundation (Pontevedra, 2014), amongst others.

His work was also shown at major art events such as the Segovia Biennial of Graphic Work (1975); the Monte de Piedad Painting Festival (Monte de Piedad, Seville, 1984); and the Fourth Salón de los 16 at the Spanish Museum of Contemporary Art (Madrid, 1984). His work can be found in the collections of the Contemporary Art Museums of Madrid, Seville and Tenerife; the Olivetti Collection; Nerva City Council; the Museo Reina Sofía; the 'La Caixa' Foundation; the Andalusia Contemporary Art Centre; and the Avianca Collection of Colombia. In 2017 he received the Gold Medal of the City of Seville and was made a member of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of Santa Isabel de Hungría in Seville.

Frederic Montornés

 
«Andalusia and Modernism: from Equipo 57 to the Generation of the 1970s», Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo. CAAC (Seville, 2002). «Manuel Salinas» (Seville, 2003).
Vv.Aa. Andalucía y la modernidad: del Equipo 57 a la Generación de los 70, Seville, Junta de Andalucía: Conserjería de Cultura, 2002. Vv.Aa. Colección Banco de España. Catálogo razonado, Madrid, Banco de España, 2019, vol. 3.