Antonio Saura

ANTONIO SAURA (Huesca, 1930 - Cuenca, 1998).
"Le nouvel observateur", 1994.
Acrylic on paper.
Signed and dated (25/2, February 25) in the lower right corner.
Attached book "Nulla dies sine linea", A.Saura. Edited by Patrick Cramer. Edition of 2000 copies.
Work published in "Nulla dies sine linea" and in the catalog of the exhibition "Red On Toys", p.216.
Work exhibited in the exhibition "Red On Toys", located in the Sant Miquel room of the Fundació Caixa de Castellón (Castellón).
Measurements: 41 x 31 cm; 71 x 61 cm (frame).
This work by Antonio Saura is part of the intense and radical last stage of the artist, where the gesture, the formal synthesis and the expressive tension reach an extreme purification. The work reproduced in the book Nulla dies sine línea ("No day without a line"), which summarizes Saura's work ethic: the constant practice of drawing as a vital necessity.
Inspired by the iconic figure of Mickey Mouse, the image is part of the vast gallery of "imaginary portraits" that Saura developed throughout his life. However, far from reproducing the recognizable and lovable character of popular culture, the artist subjects him to a disturbing metamorphosis. The face is fragmented into black and gray spots, the eyes are enlarged until they become almost spectral and the body is reduced to a gestural skeleton. Saura called these portraits "imaginary" because he assumed the impossibility of capturing a definitive face. In the case of such a reproduced icon as Mickey, that impossibility is multiplied: it is a portrait of a portrait of a portrait, an image trapped in an infinite abyss. The result is not a caricature, but a reflection on identity and its dissolution.

Self-taught, Antonio Saura appears in Madrid in 1952, and that same year he travels for the first time to Paris, where he will participate in the activities of the surrealist group. He organized his first exhibition in the French capital in 1957, at the Stadler Gallery, the same year he founded the El Paso group. In 1960 he receives the Guggenheim Award in New York, and in 1963 his first retrospectives are dedicated to him, at the Stedelijk Museum in Eindhoven, the Rotterdamsche Kunstring and in the museums of Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro (works on paper). In 1966 he participates in the Biennial of Engraving "Bianco e Nero" of Lugano, obtaining the Grand Prize. The following year he settled in Paris, and in 1968 he abandoned oil painting to devote himself exclusively to graphic work. In 1979 he was awarded a prize at the First Biennial of engraving in Heidelberg, in 1981 he was named Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters in France, and the following year he was awarded the Gold Medal of Fine Arts. He is represented at the Neue Nationalgalierie in Berlin, the Guggenheim in Bilbao, the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, the Guggenheim and the Metropolitan in New York, the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris and the Tate Gallery in London.