Felipe Criado

FELIPE CRIADO (Gijón, 1928–2013).
“Crouching Nude,” 2008.
Mixed media on panel.
Signed and dated in the upper right corner.
Measurements: 80 x 65 cm; 97 x 82 cm (frame).

Felipe Criado’s work evolved from landscape painting toward a deeply personal style of figurative painting, in which the female figure took center stage. His compositions, characterized by precise and elegant draftsmanship, combine realism with symbolic, poetic, and dreamlike elements, exploring themes such as beauty, memory, classicism, and the human condition. He also worked in mural painting, printmaking, ceramics, and illustration, always using drawing as the foundation of his artistic language.

Felipe Criado Martín was a Spanish painter, draftsman, professor, and art critic, considered one of the most prominent figures in Galician painting of the second half of the 20th century. Although he was born in Asturias, he spent virtually his entire artistic career in Galicia, where he arrived as a child and where he developed a highly personal pictorial language based on his mastery of drawing and the representation of the human figure. His training was influenced by the sculptor Francisco Asorey, who awakened his artistic vocation; he later enrolled at the San Fernando School of Fine Arts in Madrid (1954–1959), where he studied alongside artists such as Antonio López, Amalia Avia, and Isabel Quintanilla. In 1961, he was appointed professor of Artistic Anatomy and Life Drawing in Motion at the School of Arts and Crafts in Santiago de Compostela, and shortly thereafter, professor of Drawing for Secondary Schools, carrying out an intensive teaching career for several decades. Throughout his career, he held numerous solo and group exhibitions in Spain, Europe, and the Americas, and his works were acquired by major public collections, including the Museum of Fine Arts in A Coruña, the Museo do Pobo Galego, the Galician Center for Contemporary Art (CGAC), the Cervantes Institute, and the ABANCA collection. In 1996, he was named a member of the Royal Galician Academy of Fine Arts, a recognition that cemented his prominence within the Spanish art scene.