Rafael Alonso

RAFAEL ALONSO FERNÁNDEZ (Pontevedra, 1925-1995).
"Flora".1969.
Watercolour on paper.
Signed in the lower left corner.
Measurements: 87 x 64 cm; 114 x 91 cm (frame).
Rafael Alonso Fernández was a Galician painter who specialised in watercolour. Although he began studying architecture, he soon gave it up because of his artistic vocation, beginning to exhibit as early as 1947 in Vigo and Pontevedra. In 1952, thanks to a pension, he went to live and train in Paris for two years, learning first-hand about the avant-garde (post-impressionism, fauvism, etc.). His knowledge of the avant-garde can be clearly perceived in the style of this landscape. The artist places us inside a forest, near the banks of a river. Between the trees, in the middle ground, the silhouette of a river can be made out, behind which rise the bluish mountains that act as a backdrop. The artist simplifies and reduces the forms, synthesising them in search of the underlying geometrical figure, thus approaching Cezanne's painting, as well as the contributions of Cubism. The synthetic chromatic range, based on variants of green and some bluish tones, also fits in with the influence of Cézanne's painting and that of the early Cubists, such as Braque and Picasso. His work is kept in private collections (Canada, Cuba, United States, France...) and in prominent institutions such as the Paradores Nacionales de Turismo de España, the BBVA Collection, Museo Provincial de Pontevedra, Museo Municipal de Quiñones de León de Vigo, etc.