José María Barreiro

JOSE MARÍA BARREIRO (Forcarei, Pontevedra, 1940).
“Bagpiper.”
Oil on paper mounted on cardboard.
Signed in the lower margin.
Measurements: 24 x 18 cm; 55 x 48 cm (frame).

José María Barreiro’s painting is characterized by intensely expressive figurative art, created through loose brushwork, marked formal simplification, and a use of color with great emotional power. His work frequently addresses themes linked to Galician culture and traditions—folk musicians, farmers, rural scenes, and anonymous figures—reinterpreted through a contemporary language that transcends traditional folk depictions to transform them into images with a strong symbolic charge.

Barreiro held his first solo exhibition in 1961, and two years later he embarked on a study trip through Europe that would take him to Paris. There he studied the French school and exhibited his work, as he would also do in Belgium and Germany. Between 1965 and 1966, he created a series of murals in commercial buildings in Vigo, the city where he would exhibit in 1967 at the Velázquez Gallery. In the following years, he held exhibitions in various Spanish cities, and in 1969 he traveled to Argentina, where he held another exhibition. Settling in Buenos Aires, he combined painting with various interior design projects for Harrods. In 1971, he traveled through Chile, Brazil, and Uruguay, and upon his return in 1972, he held a major exhibition at the Perla Marino Gallery in the Argentine capital. He returned to Spain and exhibited in Pontevedra, participating in that city’s Biennial that same year. In the following years, he held exhibitions in Galicia, Murcia, Valladolid, Madrid, Barcelona, and Tenerife, and in 1986, a retrospective exhibition was dedicated to him at Terra de Montes. Three years later, he made his debut at the Durán Art Gallery in Madrid, where he would exhibit biannually with great success from then on. In 1991, he exhibited in the United States at the Art Chicago fair, and before the year ended, he also showed his work in Lisbon. Throughout the 1990s, he exhibited his work in Miami as well, while continuing his regular exhibitions in Spain.