Manuel Hernández Mompó

MANUEL HERNÁNDEZ MOMPÓ (Valencia, 1927 – Madrid, 1992).
Untitled, 1964.
Crayons on paper.
Signed and dated in the lower left corner.
Measurements: 24 x 18 cm; 49 x 43 cm (frame).

Hernández Mompó alternated between his elementary and high school studies and classes at the School of Applied Arts and Artistic Crafts in Valencia, which he entered in 1943. In 1948, he received a scholarship to paint in Granada at the Residencia de Pintores, and three years later, another grant enabled him to travel to Paris. In the French capital, he came into contact with circles of Informalist painters, whose influence would shape his later work, as he definitively left behind the landscapes and portraits that had dominated his oeuvre until then. Between 1954 and 1955, he spent an extended period in Rome, supported by a grant from the Department of Culture of the Ministry of National Education to study at the Spanish Academy of Fine Arts in the Italian capital. In 1954, he participated in the Viareggio International Exhibition, where he was awarded the Italian Navigation Prize. He left Italy and settled in Amsterdam, where he once again frequented the Informalist circles. In 1957, he returned to Spain and settled in Aravaca (Madrid). The following year, he was awarded a fellowship from the Juan March Foundation in Madrid, and he won the National Grand Prize for Painting and a first-place medal at the National Fine Arts Exhibition. During the 1960s and 1970s, he divided his time between Madrid and Ibiza, and in 1973 he spent a year in California. Upon his return to Spain, he settled in Mallorca. Hernández Mompó exhibited in the major capitals of Europe and the United States and participated in group exhibitions both in Spain and abroad. Among his most notable awards is the UNESCO Prize, which he received at the 34th Venice Biennale in 1968. In 1984, he was awarded the National Prize for Fine Arts by the Ministry of Culture. His early style was soon and decisively influenced by Abstract Expressionism and Informalism, although his works never lost their connection to reality. In his work, Hernández Mompó captures a figurative and poetic imagery, harmoniously blended with abstract elements and rich effects of layering. Hernández Mompó’s work is represented in the IVAM in Valencia, the Reina Sofía National Museum, the Museum of Abstract Art in Cuenca, the British Museum in London, the Georges Pompidou Center in Paris, the Chase Manhattan Bank collection in New York, and the Winterthur Museum in Switzerland, among many others.