Menchu Gal

MENCHU GAL ORENDAIN (Irun, 1918 - 2008).
"Man on the beach", c. 1978.
Oil on board.
Attached certificate of authenticity issued by the Menchu Gal Foundation.
It has slight damage to the frame.
Signed in the lower right corner.
Measurements: 35 x 24 cm; 57 x 46 cm (frame).
In this painting by Menchu Gal, we find a deeply evocative scene where the human figure merges with the landscape in a plastic and emotional gesture. The protagonist is a standing man, naked, standing in front of the sea, with his gaze raised and his body in restrained tension, as if in silent dialogue with the horizon. The artist captures this instant not from a descriptive or naturalistic intention, but from an expressionist impulse that turns the pictorial matter into the protagonist of the visual story.
Menchu Gal works with a vigorous, decisive, energetic brushstroke. The oil is applied thickly, leaving on the surface a pasty texture that gives volume and vitality to the scene. The forms are constructed by means of brushstrokes that are not limited to delimit contours, but express emotions, atmospheres and internal rhythms. In the man's body, warm tones, oranges, siennas, deep reds, contrast with the cold modulations of the sea that surrounds him, dominated by intense blues and vibrant greens. This chromatic opposition, far from being decorative, generates a visual tension that enriches the composition and underlines the strength of the moment represented.
One of the great Spanish painters of the 20th century, Menchu Gal mainly painted landscapes, although she also painted portraits, always with her personal language of extreme, almost expressionist color. In 1959 she won the National Painting Prize, becoming the first woman to receive this prestigious award. She also received the Gold Medal of Guipuzcoa (2005), the Medal of Irun (2006) and the Manuel Lecuona Prize of Eusko Ikaskuntza (2006). Gal began painting in her native Irun, where she was a disciple of Gaspar Montes Iturrioz. She was awarded a prize in the Contest of New Artists of Guipuzcoa in 1932, and before she was fifteen years old she moved to Paris to further her artistic studies. There she received classes from the master of cubism Amédée Ozenfant, and discovered Matisse and Fauvism. On his return to Spain he continued his training at the San Fernando School of Fine Arts in Madrid, where he was taught by Aurelio Arteta and Vázquez Díaz, among others. After fleeing to France as a result of the Civil War, he returned to Irun and held his first solo exhibition in San Sebastian (1942). In 1943 he settled in the Spanish capital, where he was part of the so-called Madrid School. That same year he participated in a group exhibition held at the Clan gallery with Gutiérrez Solana, Vázquez Díaz, Cossío, Zabaleta, Palencia and others. Since then her landscapes of La Mancha and the Bidasoa will form her hallmark, establishing herself as one of the leading artists of the post-war period. In 1950 she held a solo exhibition at the National Museum of Modern Art in Madrid. An outstanding architect of the renovation of Spanish painting in the forties, valued and recognized in the difficult world of painting since her youth, Menchu Gal was characterized by her free, heterodox and independent spirit, ahead of her time. Throughout her career she starred in a multitude of exhibitions, both in Spain and abroad, in cities such as Venice, Brussels and New York. Particularly noteworthy were the exhibitions he held at the Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon in 1971 and at the Conde Duque Cultural Center in Madrid in 1990. In 1992 the Kutxa Foundation dedicated a retrospective exhibition to him, which was published in a catalog that included an in-depth study of his life and work. She also participated in three editions of the Venice Biennale. Menchu Gal is currently represented at the Reina Sofía Museum in Madrid and the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum, among others. In January 2010 an exhibition hall bearing her name was inaugurated in Irun, the first step of the future Museum of Painters of Bidasoa.