Eduardo Arroyo

EDUARDO ARROYO (Madrid, 1937-2018).
"Mickey Mouse-Cristobal Colon", 1992.
Mixed media (sandpaper, oil, collage and ink) on tablex.
Work exhibited in the exhibition "Red On Toys", located in the Sant Miquel room of the Fundació Caixa de Castellón (Castellón) during the months of January and March in 2018. This piece appears in the catalog of that exhibition on page 216.
Attached is the catalog of said exhibition with the reproduced work.
Signed and dated in the lower middle area.
Measurements: 51 x 35 cm; 77 x 60 cm (frame).
The figure of Mickey Mouse occupies a strategic place in the work of Eduardo Arroyo, a key artist of Spanish narrative figuration. For Arroyo, Mickey is not an innocent character of children's imagination, but a cultural symbol loaded with ambiguity: he represents the expansion of mass culture, the power of global iconography and, at the same time, a form of symbolic colonization.
In "Mickey Mouse-Cristopher Columbus", the artist establishes an ironic parallelism between the famous Disney mouse and the historical figure of Christopher Columbus. The association is not accidental: Arroyo suggests that, just as Columbus embodies the territorial and cultural expansion of the modern world, Mickey symbolizes the contemporary expansion of the American imaginary on a planetary scale. The conquistador and the pop icon thus merge in a critical reading of power, hegemony and cultural domination. Signed and dated 1992, it belongs to a moment of the artist's maturity, when his political and cultural discourse is more forcefully articulated.
Eduardo Arroyo was a painter, sculptor and engraver, and an essential figure of the new Spanish figuration and the neo-figurativist movement. He began his career in journalism, but in 1958 he settled in Paris, fleeing the political climate of Franco's regime. Although he also developed a solid career as a writer, since 1960 he lived mainly from painting.
In a context dominated by abstraction, he defended a critical and narrative figurative painting, with an acid and ironic language influenced in part by pop art. His work, openly combative against political and artistic dictatorships, brought him censorship and persecution: he was expelled from Spain in 1974 and did not recover his passport until Franco's death.
His recognition in Spain came late, consolidating in the eighties with the National Prize of Plastic Arts (1982) and several anthological exhibitions. Today his work is part of important collections, such as those of the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, the Centre Pompidou and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, among other international institutions.