Luis Feito

LUIS FEITO (Madrid, 1929 – Rascafría, Madrid, 2021).
Untitled.
Mixed media on paper.
Signed in the lower left corner.
Measurements: 22 x 11 cm; 33 x 23 cm (frame).

The work reflects the abstract language developed by Feito throughout his career, based on the tension between gesture, color, and structure. Against a background of red, yellow, and green washes, a composition of black, geometrically shaped forms is arranged, articulated through circles and interlinked modules. The lightness of the chromatic patches is a hallmark of these forms, which are bold, while the ample negative space reinforces their presence. For Feito, works on paper constituted an important field of experimentation, closely linked to his pictorial explorations; the 2002 retrospective at the Reina Sofía Museum brought together some one hundred works of this type.

Luis Feito was one of the key figures in Spanish abstraction during the second half of the 20th century and one of its most internationally renowned artists. A founding member of El Paso in 1957, he spent much of his career in Paris, Montreal, and New York. In 1960, he participated in the 30th Venice Biennale, where he won the David E. Bright Prize, and that same year he was selected for the exhibition *New Spanish Painting and Sculpture* at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. He was awarded the French Order of Arts and Letters and the Gold Medal for Merit in Fine Arts in 1998. That same year, he was admitted to the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando, and in 2002, the Reina Sofía Museum dedicated the retrospective *Feito: Works 1952–2002* to him.