Eusebio Sempere

EUSEBIO SEMPERE (Onil, Alicante, 1923 - 1985).
"Rectangular division of the circle".1973.
Oil on board
Signed.
Provenance: -Puchol art gallery, Valencia. -Private collection, Madrid.
Measurements: 50 x 50 cm.

"Rectangular division of the circle" is fully situated in the line of geometric and optical research that characterizes the artistic maturity of Eusebio Sempere. The work, done in oil on panel, reveals the formal rigor and perceptive delicacy that define his visual language.

The composition presents a circle inscribed in a square of the same brown hue, generating a contained harmony between the organic form of the circle and the rationality of the rectangular frame. Within that circle, he arranges a combination of rectangular or modular patterns, each with subtle variations in tone and texture. These differences produce an effect reminiscent of a marquetry of different woods, as if the surface were constructed by juxtaposing small, carefully assembled pieces.

This visual resource is linked to the artist's constant preoccupation with light gradation, rhythm and optical vibration. Although executed in oil, the result maintains the appearance of a constructed rather than painted surface, in coherence with his interest in almost artisanal precision.

Sculptor, painter and graphic artist, Sempere is the most representative painter of kinetic art in Spain. He began his studies at the School of Arts and Crafts in Valencia, and in 1948 he settled in Paris thanks to a scholarship, making his debut in that city at the Salon des Realites Nouvelles. After a period in Spain, where he was a member of the Cuenca Group and Parpalló, in 1964 he traveled, again on a scholarship, to the United States, exhibiting that same year at the Berta Schaefer Gallery in New York. At the end of the sixties he will focus on the use of the computer for artistic purposes, developing a work in the Calculus Center of the University of Madrid that will turn him into a pioneer of this art in Spain. He holds the Gold Medal for Merit in Fine Arts and the Prince of Asturias Award for the Arts, and his work is present in the Reina Sofia Museum, the MoMA in New York, the IVAM in Valencia, the Patio Herreriano in Valladolid, the British Museum in London and the National Museum of Western Art in Tokyo, among many others.