Cirilo Martínez Novillo

CIRILO MARTÍNEZ NOVILLO (Madrid, 1921 - 2008).
"View of Paris", 1952.
Mixed media on paper.
Signed, dated and located in the lower right corner.
Presents foxing.
Measurements: 18,3 x 13,5 cm.

The Parisian stage of Cirilo Martínez Novillo was brief in duration, but decisive for his artistic evolution. He traveled to Paris thanks to a scholarship of the French Institute of Madrid at the beginning of the 50s, and later he returned in other two occasions with helps of the Delegation of Culture (1953) and of the Foundation Juan March (1961). In Paris he came into direct contact with the great modern European painting. He was especially impressed by Cézanne, Van Gogh, Picasso and Braque, artists who helped him to emerge from the more austere realism of post-war Madrid. Until then, Novillo was closely linked to the aesthetics of the Madrid School and the influence of Benjamín Palencia: dry, earthy and highly structured Castilian landscapes. The Parisian experience broadened his language:

Cirilo Martínez Novillo is one of the most prominent representatives of the so-called School of Madrid, the city where he began his training at the School of Arts and Crafts. During the Civil War he enters the Escuela Superior de Pintura and attends the workshop of Daniel Vázquez Díaz, who will become his teacher, supporting him throughout his career. In 1946 he presents his work for the first time, in the framework of a group exhibition held at the Bucholz gallery in Madrid. The following year he held his first individual exhibition at the same gallery. In 1948 he held an exhibition in the prints room of the Museum of Modern Art in Madrid, the critics began to echo his work and he was selected to participate in the exhibition "Spanish Art", held in Buenos Aires and organized by the Ministry of Education. From this moment on, he shows his work in several Spanish cities and in France, and participates in group exhibitions such as the Venice Biennial (1950) or the Salón de los Once (1951). Between 1952 and 1953 he travels three times to Paris thanks to different scholarships. His period of maturity begins with a new visit to Paris at the beginning of the sixties, to later travel to Switzerland, Germany, Holland and Belgium, obtaining several medals in the National Exhibitions of Fine Arts, as well as the Painting Prize of the Hispano-American Biennial of Cuba. Cirilo Martínez Novillo is represented in the Reina Sofía Museum, the Mapfre, AENA, Gaya Nuño and Santander Central Hispano Foundations, the Municipal Museum of Contemporary Art of Madrid, the Fine Arts Museums of Bilbao and Oviedo, the Argentaria, Caja España and Telefónica collections and the Valdepeñas Museum.