Modest Cuixart

MODEST CUIXART (Barcelona, 1925 – Palamós, Girona, 2007).
“Monotips Series,” 1951.
Gouache and ink on paper.
Signed and dated in the lower right corner.
Identification label on the reverse.
Measurements: 32 x 22 cm; 43 x 33 cm (frame).

Created during the height of the Dau al Set period, the work belongs to an early and particularly significant phase in Cuixart’s career, characterized by a magical and surrealistic imagery. The Fundació Cuixart dates his compositions of geometric automatism—featuring signs, figures, and astral forms, often executed in ink and gouache—to the period between 1948 and 1955. In this piece, reddish and ochre fields combine with circles, biomorphic forms, and small black symbols, creating an enigmatic image that straddles the line between abstraction and automatic writing. The gouache creates matte, diffuse surfaces, while the ink introduces the graphic and precise counterpoint characteristic of these early explorations.

Modest Cuixart was one of the leading figures of the postwar Catalan and Spanish avant-garde, having gained international recognition early in his career. In 1959, he won the Grand Prize for Painting at the São Paulo Biennial, and the following year he participated in *New Spanish Painting and Sculpture* at the Museum of Modern Art and in *Before Picasso; after Miró* at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York. His work is included, among others, in the collections of the Reina Sofía Museum and MoMA.