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MANUEL VIOLA (Zaragoza, 1916 - San Lorenzo de El Escorial, 1987).Untitled, circa 1970.Oil on panel.Attached certificate issue

Setdart Subastas S.L

Lot 59

MANUEL VIOLA (Zaragoza, 1916 - San Lorenzo de El Escorial, 1987).Untitled, circa 1970.Oil on panel.Attached certificate issued by Jacobo Viola, son of the artist.Signed in the lower right corner.Measurements: 60 x 40 cm.In this apparently simple work, Viola, introduces on the black, only the primary colours, which he manipulates with a great mastery, to create a whole range of tonalities, which melt between the brushstrokes of the artist, who lets rest on the support a great quantity of matter.The piece shows the habitual use of black as a background on which the tonalities are reversed, and in turn emerge as flashes of light, in an immense inconcrete void. A pictorial space, which becomes a visual poetry, where the tensions generated by the artist, through the contrast of tonalities, such as blue and yellow, directly question the spectator. José Viola Gamón adopted the name by which he is known, Manuel Viola, after the Civil War. A member of the El Paso group, his painting is characterised by an informalist and colourist treatment, in line with the avant-garde movements developed in Spain from the 1950s onwards. He began studying philosophy and literature in Barcelona, but was forced to abandon them because of the war. His first drawings date from these years. After the war he went into exile in France, where he wrote for the surrealist poetry magazine "La main à plume". There he began to exhibit his work in the exhibitions of the so-called Spanish School of Paris. He returned to Spain in 1949, and in 1958 his truly personal style began to emerge, and at the same time he joined the avant-garde pictorial group El Paso, to which Antonio Saura, Rafael Canogar, Luis Feito and Manolo Millares, among others, belonged. He began to express himself through abstract painting with a strong expressionist character and great attention to colour. He definitively left behind the figuration that had prevailed until then in his work. Throughout his life he was awarded numerous prizes, such as the Condado de San Jorge Prize, the Lissones Prize (Milan) and the Gold Medal of the City of Saragossa. He exhibited in the most important galleries in Spain and also abroad, in cities such as Oslo, New York, Venice, São Paulo and Houston. While he was still alive, important retrospective exhibitions of his work were held: in 1965 at the Dirección de Bellas Artes de Madrid, in 1971 at the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Madrid, in 1972 at the Lonja de Zaragoza, in 1983 at the Armas Gallery in Miami, and in 1986 in Houston. After his death, anthological exhibitions of his work continued to be held in international galleries and museums. Manuel Viola's work can be seen in the Reina Sofía Museum, the Museum of Modern Art in Cologne, the Museum of Fine Arts in Bilbao, the Guggenheim in New York and Bilbao and the Museum of Spanish Abstract Art in Cuenca, among many others.

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