Luis Feito

LUIS FEITO (Madrid, 1929–2021).
Untitled, 2006.
Oil on paper mounted on canvas.
Signed and dated.
Measurements: 57 x 50 cm.
Around the early 2000s, Luis Feito gradually returned to a more gestural and spontaneous style of painting, following the period of heightened geometric refinement that had characterized much of his earlier work. By 2006, this evolution was already fully established, as exemplified by this work. Gesture, material, and chance take center stage, while the geometric structure loses its rigidity and becomes integrated into a freer, more dynamic composition. This marks a return to a new aesthetic that had been present in the Informalist origins of his artistic language, but one approached through the experience and refinement gained over several decades of his career.
Trained at the San Fernando School of Fine Arts in Madrid, where he enrolled in 1950 and later served as a drawing instructor, Feito quickly became part of the Spanish artistic avant-garde. In 1956, he moved to Paris on a scholarship, and a year later he founded Grupo El Paso. His career achieved significant international recognition, with exhibitions in Europe, the United States, and Japan, and his participation in the 1960 Venice Biennale, where he won the David E. Bright Prize. Among his major honors are his appointment as an Officer of the Order of Arts and Letters of France, the Gold Medal for Merit in the Fine Arts (1998), and his election as a full member of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando. His work is represented in major international collections and museums, including the Reina Sofía National Art Center, MoMA in New York, the Guggenheim Museum in New York, the National Museum of Modern Art in Paris, the Museum of Modern Art in Rome, as well as institutions in Helsinki, Ottawa, and Tokyo.