Rafael Alberti

RAFAEL ALBERTI (El Puerto de Santa María, Cádiz, 1902–1999).
Untitled, 1970.
Marker on paper.
Signed.
Measurements: 28 x 22 cm; 40 x 34 cm (frame).

Rafael Alberti was one of the great poets of the Generation of ’27 and one of the most prominent figures of the Silver Age of Spanish literature. A recipient of the National Poetry Prize (1925), the Lenin Peace Prize (1965), the National Theater Prize (1980), the Cervantes Prize (1983), and the Rome Prize for Literature (1991), his career was marked by a firm intellectual and political commitment, leading him even to decline the Prince of Asturias Award due to his republican convictions. Before devoting himself to poetry, his first calling was painting, a passion awakened after his arrival in Madrid in 1917 and his discovery of the Prado Museum. He exhibited his first works at the Salón de Otoño in Madrid in 1920, although his father’s death led him to definitively shift his career toward literature, where he achieved early recognition and forged close ties with members of the Generation of ’27. However, he never entirely abandoned his role as a painter, especially during his exile, when he resumed his artistic practice with great intensity. The result of that union between word and image was *A la pintura* (1945), one of his most iconic works, in which he paid homage to the art of painting through poems dedicated to colors, the painter’s tools, and great masters such as Titian and El Greco, reflecting the deep connection he always maintained between poetry and painting.