Manuel Rivera

MANUEL RIVERA (Granada, 1928 - Madrid, 1995).
"Reliquary", 1981.
Metal mesh and wooden constructions on board.
It has author's frame.
Signed, dated and titled on the back.
Measurements: 46 x 38 cm (frame included).
This work entitled Relicario (1981) belongs to Manuel Rivera's maturity stage, who in the eighties, aesthetically deepened in his famous "mesh paintings", material structures where the tensioned metal, transparencies and light vibration generate ambiguous spaces as seen in this piece. In this period, his work acquired a more introspective character, with references to ritual and spirituality, elements that are eloquently manifested in Relicario. In fact, the piece reveals characteristic traits of his artistic research such as optical depth, the combination of industrial materials with an almost liturgical sensibility, and a sustained search for the transcendent within abstract language.
Manuel Rivera began his career as a figurative painter, but in the mid-fifties he abandoned this line to focus on a fully abstract discourse. His most decisive contribution was the introduction of metallic meshes as support and pictorial content, creating surfaces that transformed the notion of the painting into a spatial object. He was one of the pillars of the El Paso Group, together with Saura, Millares and Feito, a key movement for the renovation of Spanish art in dialogue with the international avant-garde.
Rivera participated in fundamental exhibitions such as the São Paulo Biennial, the Venice Biennial, and solo exhibitions in institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art in New York (MoMA), the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, the Guggenheim Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, among others.
During the seventies and eighties his presence in European and American galleries intensified, consolidating his global projection. Currently his works are part of prestigious collections such as the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (Madrid), the Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, the MoMA, New York, The Phillips Collection, Washington D.C., the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the Juan March Foundation or the Banco de España Collection.