Ralf Winkler

JOAQUÍN MICHAVILA (Alcora, Castellón, 1926 - Albalat de Taronchers, Valencia, 2016).
"Sketch for window", 1952.
Graph on paper.
Titled and dated in the lower right corner. Dedicated on the back in 2005. Gift from the artist.
Measures: 24.5 x 30 cm; 40 x 46 cm (frame).
One of the leading representatives of Valencian abstraction, Joaquín Michavila trained at the Escuela Superior de Bellas Artes de San Carlos in Valencia, of whose academy he was a member from 1975 and president from 2003 to 2007. Professor of Fine Arts, he was awarded the Distinction for Cultural Merit of the Generalitat Valenciana (2001) and the Plastic Arts Prize of the Generalitat Valenciana (2007). Michavila moved to Valencia in 1932, where he lived until 1966. A prominent participant in the Valencian avant-garde, Michavila was a member of the groups Los Siete, Parpalló and Artes del Arte from the time they were founded. He began his career in 1952, and for some years he searched for his own language, and from 1960 onwards he developed a language framed within constructivism, which progressively evolved in an increasingly geometric direction. A decade later he focused on evoking the landscapes of his youth through abstraction, and around 1990 he began to move towards tenebrism, with works marked by the contrast of light and shade. At the beginning of the 21st century, Michavila began a new phase with a production of acrylics generically entitled "Counterpoint", a musical term from which spring plastic interpretations of master composers of the avant-garde such as Schönberg, Luis de Pablo and Paco Llàcer. This last series speaks of a certain existential drama derived from the previous pictorial tenebrism, with black backgrounds on which sound becomes pure form, sound vibration as well as light, playing at evoking synaesthesia. Throughout his career, Michavila held exhibitions all over Spain, as well as in Rome, Florence, Basel, Denver, São Paulo, New York and Vienna. He was awarded numerous prizes, including the Alfonso Roig Prize from the Diputación de Valencia in 1996 and the Gold Medal of the City of Valencia in 1997, as well as being named Alcorí Distinguit in 1998. In February 2016, the University of Valencia dedicated a monographic exhibition to him as a tribute, bringing together a selection of thirty representative works from throughout his career.