Santiago Lagunas

SANTIAGO LAGUNAS MAYANDIA (Zaragoza, 1912-1995).
Untitled, 1952.
Mixed media on paper.
It presents faults in the frame.
Measurements: 19 x 26 cm; 35 x 41 cm (frame).
Santiago Lagunas was one of the pioneering figures of the artistic abstraction in Spain and an outstanding architect linked to the Aragonese cultural renovation of the 20th century. Initially trained in various painting studios in Zaragoza, he entered the School of Architecture in Madrid in 1929, where he completed his studies in 1940. His first pictorial works were linked to a figurative aesthetic, focused on still lifes, landscapes and portraits.
In 1947 he founded the historic Grupo Pórtico, considered one of the first abstract avant-garde groups in post-war Spain. Together with artists such as Fermín Aguayo and Eloy Giménez Laguardia, he promoted an innovative plastic language that introduced European abstract currents into the Spanish art scene. During these years he participated in numerous exhibitions in cities such as Zaragoza, Madrid, Bilbao and Santander, consolidating a work where abstraction still coexisted with certain expressionist and intimist elements.
At the same time he developed an important career as an architect. Among his most outstanding projects were the Metropolitan Seminary of Zaragoza and the renovation of the now disappeared Dorado cinema, an emblematic work of the Portico Group, conceived as an integration of architecture, painting and sculpture. From 1952, after a personal crisis, he reduced his pictorial activity and concentrated mainly on architecture and the cultural dynamization of Zaragoza, and from the mid-seventies he took up painting again intensely, especially after his retirement, developing a mature production linked to lyrical abstraction.
Throughout his career he received important awards, including the Gold Medal of the Diputación de Zaragoza (1984), the Gold Medal of the City of Zaragoza (1991) and the Aragón Prize for the Arts (1992). His legacy occupies a fundamental place in the history of Spanish abstraction and post-war avant-garde art.