Benjamin Palencia

BENJAMÍN PALENCIA (Barrax, Albacete, 1894 - Madrid, 1980).
"Bouquet of flowers", 1974.
Etching on paper. Copy 125/245.
Signed and numbered in pencil. Signed and dated on plate.
Measurements: 32 x 24 cm, 45 x 35 cm (frame).
Founder of the School of Vallecas together with Alberto Sánchez, sculptor, Benjamín Palencia was one of the most important heirs of the poetics of the Castilian landscape characteristic of the Generation of 98. With only fifteen years Palencia leaves his native town and settles in Madrid to develop his formation through his frequent visits to the Museum of the Prado, since he always rejected the official teachings of the Real Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando. In 1925 he participates in the Exhibition of Iberian Artists held at the Retiro Palace in Madrid, and in 1926 he travels for the first time to Paris. There he met Picasso, Gargallo and Miró and came into contact with the collage technique, which he would later apply to his work, incorporating new materials such as sand or ashes. It will be from this Parisian stay when Palencia's work acquires a surrealist tone, evidenced in an increasingly greater expressive freedom that will reach its fullness in his period of maturity. On his return to Madrid he founded the Vallecas School (1927), and made his individual debut at the Museum of Modern Art (1928). Palencia will gradually abandon the still lifes to return to the Castilian landscape. This personal aesthetic of the landscape will reach its culmination in the School of Vallecas and, after a brilliant surrealist incursion in the early thirties, at the outbreak of the Civil War Palencia remains in Madrid, suffering like his generation mates a period of deep crisis. After the war, between 1939 and 1940 his painting took a radical turn; he abandoned cubist influences in search of an art of strong chromatic impact. Focused on his work as a landscape painter, Palencia took up again in 1942 the experience of the Vallecas School together with the young painters Álvar Delgado, Carlos Pascual de Lara, Gregorio del Olmo, Enrique Núñez Casteló and Francisco San José. His work will gather images of the Castilian countryside and its peasants and animals. Already fully consolidated, in 1943 he obtains the first medal in the National Exhibition of Fine Arts and in 1944 he is selected to participate in the Salón de los Once de Eugenio D'Ors in Madrid. The following year he is awarded the medal of honor at the National Exhibition, although he renounces it to facilitate its concession to José Gutiérrez Solana, who died a few days before the jury's decision. From this decade on, his exhibitions in art centers and galleries such as the Círculo de Bellas Artes in Madrid or the Estilo gallery, and in 1946 he was once again selected for the Salón de los Once. He also began to participate in international exhibitions, such as those of Spanish Contemporary Art held in 1947 in Buenos Aires.