Pablo Palazuelo

PALAZUELO PABLO PALAZUELO DE LA PEÑA (Madrid, 1916 – Galapagar, Madrid, 2007).
“Sigila I,” 1975.
Gouache on embossed paper.
Includes a certificate of authenticity issued by the Palazuelo Foundation, signed by José Rodríguez–Spiteri, and a copy of a letter sent by the artist to the publisher with details about the work.
It shows slight discoloration in the upper part of the paper.
Signed and dated on the reverse.
Measurements: 24 x 18 cm; 45 x 38 cm (frame).
In *Sigila I*, Palazuelo develops an abstract composition in which line and geometry become tools for exploring space and its potential for transformation. Far from proposing a rigid and static geometry, the artist constructs a network of forms that seems to be in a continuous process of expansion, contraction, and displacement. This 1975 piece is a preparatory gouache—or rather, a model—related to the subsequent Sigila print series, which the Palazuelo Foundation dates to 1977. During the 1970s, Palazuelo delved particularly deeply into drawing, gouache, and printmaking, exploring the relationships between line, rhythm, number, and space. It is in this context that his idea of “transgeometry” takes on special significance: geometry understood as something dynamic, capable of producing and transforming structures. Rather than representing an external reality, his compositions seem to reveal the very process by which a form is born, transforms, and establishes new relationships with others, and *Sigila I* is particularly representative of this concept.
A painter, printmaker, and sculptor, Pablo Palazuelo was one of the key figures in Spanish art during the second half of the 20th century. He studied architecture in Madrid and Oxford, but in 1939 he decided to devote himself entirely to painting. During these years, he participated in various national competitions, such as the National Exhibition in Madrid in 1945. In 1948, he moved to France to study on a scholarship from the Institut Français. That same year, he exhibited at the Galerie Denise René in Paris, which provided the definitive boost to the dissemination of his work. Throughout his career, Palazuelo has received awards such as the Kandinsky and Carnegie Prizes, the Medal of Fine Arts, the National Prize for Plastic Arts, and the Velázquez Prize, among others. In 1995, the Reina Sofía National Art Museum dedicated a retrospective exhibition to him, and between 2006 and 2007, the MACBA in Barcelona and the Guggenheim in Bilbao did the same. Palazuelo’s work is currently represented at the Reina Sofía Museum in Madrid, the Guggenheim Museums in New York and Bilbao, the MACBA in Barcelona, the Maeght Foundation in France, the Museums of Modern Art in Paris and Rio de Janeiro, the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, and the Kunsthaus in Zurich, among many others.