Manuel Viola

MANUEL VIOLA (Zaragoza, 1916 - San Lorenzo de El Escorial, 1987).
Untitled, 1957.
Mixed media on panel.
It has slight damage to the frame.
Signed and dated in the lower right corner.
Measurements: 21,5 x 17,5 cm; 44 x 40 cm (frame).
Manuel Viola, artistic name of José Viola Gamón, was an outstanding Spanish painter linked to the informalist avant-garde of the second half of the 20th century. After the Civil War, he abandoned his studies of Philosophy and Letters and went into exile in France, where he began to relate to the surrealist environment and to exhibit his first works within the so-called Spanish School of Paris.
In 1949 he returned to Spain and, from the end of the 50's, he consolidated his most personal pictorial language, characterized by an expressionist abstraction of great chromatic intensity. His incorporation into the El Paso group, along with artists such as Antonio Saura and Rafael Canogar, marked his full integration into the Spanish post-war avant-garde, focused on informalism and experimentation with matter and color.
His work definitively abandoned figuration to focus on gestural compositions, dominated by a strong emotional charge and an expressive use of color. Throughout his career he received numerous awards and exhibited in major museums and international galleries, establishing himself as a key figure in Spanish abstract art.