José Luis Tolosa

JOSÉ LUIS TOLOSA (Bilbao, 1934).
Untitled. 1976.
Oil on canvas.
Signed in the lower right corner.
Work of the same series published in the Dictionary of Spanish painters and sculptors of the twentieth century. Volume 14,
Measurements: 73 x 92,5 cm.

Painter and draftsman. At the age of 16 he began to study drawing and watercolor with a teacher and later attended the drawing courses organized by the School of Arts and Crafts at the Museum of Reproductions where he won first prize in 1955. In 1959 he travels to Paris and enters the Ecole Supérieure des Beaux-Arts and also studies in the courses organized by the Ville de Paris. In 1963 he had his first exhibition in Paris at the Galerie des Jeunes, and between 1960-67 he participated in the Salons de l'Art Libre, des Surindependants and d'Automne. During his Parisian period Tolosa came into contact with the trends and currents of the moment, assimilating and living them. In 1967 he moved to the French West Indies trying to give a greater authenticity to his paintings. He returns to Europe, traveling through Morocco, etc. In 1970 he enrols at the University of Paris VIII to study art, which will mean focusing on the study of painting and its technique exclusively. He obtains his degree in 1973 and in 1974 the Maîtrise de Arts Plastiques. In 1975 he dedicates himself to drawing, making another trip to the Antilles. In January 1976 he settles in Bilbao closing his evolution, after a first stage centered in the Biscayan town of Bakio, the second corresponds to his university level, arriving at this last one that would correspond to the interaction of the synthesis of the two preceding ones: Amarras amarillas, Recuerdo, Impermeables, Astillero, Hambres y buoyas, Pescadores, Ondárroa, Ciérvana, Plaza Saint André de París, etc. He has exhibited in Bilbao, Madrid, Paris, Point à Pitre (Antilles, 1975), among other places.