José Antonio Palanca

JOSE ANTONIO PALANCA RUIZ (Valencia, 1934).
"Doll.
Oil on canvas.
Signed in the lower left corner.
Measurements: 80.5 x 63 cm, 90 x 73 cm (frame).
José Antonio Palanca Ruiz was born in 1934 and was inspired mainly in the fifties. It can be said that the 1950s were dominated by abstract expressionism, a form of painting that gave priority to dramatic brushstrokes and expressed ideas about organic nature, spirituality and the sublime. Much of the focus was on the formal techniques of painting, and the ideas of action painting became confused with the political freedom of American society as opposed to the restrictive nature of the Soviet bloc. In the postwar period, the lens of modernism focused, in terms of international attention, on events in New York City. World War II had brought many prominent artists exiled from Europe to the city, resulting in a remarkable pooling of talent and ideas. Among the influential Europeans who came to New York and inspired American artists were Piet Mondrian, Josef Albers, and Hans Hoffmann, who between them laid the foundation for much of America's significant cultural growth in the decades that followed. Influential artists of the Abstract Expressionist Generation included Jackson Pollock (who innovated his famous drip, splatter and pour painting techniques), Willem de Kooning, Mark Rothko, Frank Kline, Barnett Newman, Clyfford Still and Adolph Gottlieb. It was a male-dominated environment, but the necessary revisionism of this period has highlighted the contributions of women artists such as Lee Krasner, Joan Mitchell and Louise Bourgeois, among others.