Luis Feito

LUIS FEITO (Madrid, 1929–2021).
“Peintre No. 826,” 1971.
Oil on canvas.
Signed and dated on the reverse.
Measurements: 146 x 114 cm.
Created in 1971, this work belongs to a pivotal moment in Luis Feito’s career. Following the intense, material-focused Informalism of the 1950s and 1960s, Feito moved toward more essential compositions, in which the circle, black, and the intensity of primary colors took on an increasingly prominent role. In the lower section, red and yellow burst forcefully through the darkness, creating a contrast of great intensity. Black, far from serving as a neutral background, retains the density and roughness characteristic of Feito’s painting, which plays with the accumulation of pigment and layering, making the surface an essential element of the work.This combination of geometry and materiality particularly defines Feito’s work during the early 1970s. The circular form, increasingly autonomous, reflects his interest in a style of painting characterized by maximum synthesis, which is also linked to his engagement with Eastern art and aesthetics. The reduction of elements does not imply a loss of expressiveness, but rather a concentration of pictorial energy into a few signs and colors.
The work thus occupies a significant position between two phases of his evolution: on the one hand, the informalist and material-gestural painting of previous years, and on the other, the progressive simplification that would lead Feito, by the end of the decade, toward his white and virtually monochromatic compositions. Within the artist’s career, it can be linked to works from the late 1960s held at the Reina Sofía Museum—which are still dominated by a greater material-gestural expansion— and with paintings from the early 1970s found in collections such as the BBVA Collection and the MACA, where the circle and the hallmarks of black, red, and yellow already take on a more defined structure.
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 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 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.