Menchu Gal

MENCHU GAL (Irun, 1918 - 2008).
"Marina".
Oil on cardboard.
Slight damage to the frame.
Signed in the lower left corner.
Size: 33 x 44 cm; 50 x 63 cm (frame).
This work by Menchu Gal, offers a version of the world from a naive perspective, in which the joy of living is optimised. A pictorial space conceived and dedicated to leisure, where the characters develop freely, immersed in an open landscape, in contact with nature. The chromatic range supports these concepts, as the artist uses a palette of bright tones, where blue becomes the undisputed protagonist. On numerous occasions Menchu Gal used sea views as a source of inspiration in her painting, as can be seen in a section of the Menchu Gal Foundation's collection devoted exclusively to this genre.
One of the great Spanish painters of the 20th century, Menchu Gal mainly painted landscapes, although she also painted portraits, always with her personal language of extreme, almost expressionist colour. In 1959 she won the National Painting Prize, becoming the first woman to receive this prestigious award. She also received the Gold Medal of Guipúzcoa (2005), the Medal of Irún (2006) and the Manuel Lecuona Prize of Eusko Ikaskuntza (2006). Gal began painting in her native Irun, where she was a disciple of Gaspar Montes Iturrioz. She was awarded a prize in the Gipuzkoa New Artists Competition in 1932, and before she was fifteen years old she moved to Paris to further her artistic studies. There she received classes from the master of cubism, Amédée Ozenfant, and discovered Matisse and Fauvism. On returning to Spain he continued his training at the San Fernando School of Fine Arts in Madrid, where he was taught by Aurelio Arteta and Vázquez Díaz, among others. After fleeing to France as a result of the Civil War, he returned to Irún and held his first solo exhibition in San Sebastián (1942). In 1943 he settled in the Spanish capital, where he formed part of the so-called Madrid School. That same year he took part in a group exhibition held at the Clan gallery together with Gutiérrez Solana, Vázquez Díaz, Cossío, Zabaleta, Palencia and others. From then on her landscapes of La Mancha and the Bidasoa formed her hallmark, establishing herself as one of the leading artists of the post-war period. In 1950 she held a solo exhibition at the National Museum of Modern Art in Madrid. An outstanding architect of the renewal of Spanish painting in the 1940s, valued and recognised in the difficult world of painting from her youth, Menchu Gal was characterised by her free, heterodox and independent spirit, ahead of her time. Throughout her career she staged a multitude of exhibitions, both in Spain and abroad, in cities such as Venice, Brussels and New York. Particularly noteworthy were the exhibitions he held at the Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon in 1971 and at the Conde Duque Cultural Centre in Madrid in 1990. In 1992 the Kutxa Foundation dedicated a retrospective exhibition to him, the catalogue of which included an in-depth study of his life and work. She also participated in three editions of the Venice Biennale. Menchu Gal is currently represented at the Museo Reina Sofía in Madrid and the Museo de Bellas Artes in Bilbao, among others. In January 2010, an exhibition hall bearing her name was opened in Irun, the first step in the future Museum of Painters of Bidasoa.