Luis Feito

LUIS FEITO (Madrid, 1929-2021).
"Guadarrama II". 2004.
Monotype on canvas, E/U copy.
Signed and justified by hand.
Measurements: 140 x 100 cm.
Born and educated in Madrid, he was one of the founding members of the El Paso group. In 1954 he held his first individual exhibition, with work of a non-figurative tendency, at the Buchholz gallery in Madrid. From this moment Feito will exhibit regularly in the most important cities in the world, such as Paris, Milan, New York, Helsinki, Tokyo or Rome. Appointed professor at the San Fernando School of Fine Arts in 1954, two years later he abandoned teaching and went to Paris with a scholarship, in order to study current avant-garde movements. In this period he received the influences of automatism and material painting. In 1962 he joined as a founding member of the group El Paso, with which he had lost contact during his years in Paris. His first works were part of figurative painting, and then he went through a phase in which he experimented with cubism, and finally delved fully into abstraction. At first he only used black, ocher and white colors, but upon discovering the potential of light he began to use more vivid colors and smooth planes. He evolved to use red as a counterpoint in his compositions (since 1962) and, in general, more intense colors. In his abstract phase, which includes the 1970s, Feito shows a clear tendency towards simplification, with the circle as a geometric shape predominating in his compositions. Possibly, the influence of Japanese art can be seen in his preference for large black bands. Most of his works lack titles, so they are usually recognized by the numbering assigned to them. Among his awards stands out his appointment as an Officer of the Order of Arts and Letters of France in 1985. In 1998 he received the Gold Medal of Fine Arts in Madrid, and was named Full Member of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts. of San Fernando. In 2000 he was awarded the Prize of the Spanish Association of Art Critics at the Estampa salon, in 2002 the AECA Grand Prize for the best international artist at ARCO, in 2003 the prize for the most relevant artist at the Osaka Art Fair (Japan), in 2004 the Prize for the Culture of the Plastic Arts of the Community of Madrid, in 2005 the Francisco Tomás Prieto Prize of the National Mint and Stamp Factory, and in 2008 the Jorge Alió Foundation Prize and the Grand Prize of Spanish Contemporary Art CESMAI. Luis Feito is represented in the most prominent museums around the world, among which we will point out the Gallery of Modern Art in Rome, the Guggenheim, the MoMA and the Chase Manhattan Bank in New York, the Museums of Modern Art in Tokyo, Paris, Rio de Janeiro and Montreal, Lissone in Italy etc.