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Exhibition organized by the Fundación MAPFRE with the collaboration of the Estepona City Council
Henri Matisse
Letter to Henry Clifford, 14 February 1948
Since 1997, Fundación MAPFRE has focused its efforts on recovering works on paper by artists and movements that are essential for understanding the evolution and uses of drawing and painting in both Spain and Europe. The selection we present today spans a period from the mid-19th century to the mid-20th century, precisely when drawing still embodies its dual nature. On one hand, it serves as a creative medium for the final execution of other works; on the other, it demonstrates its independence as a complete and self-sufficient art form.
The exhibition begins its journey with those drawings that, in the last years of the 19th century and the early 20th century, represented a significant change in the realm of visual arts. The works of Ignacio Pinazo, Edgar Degas, Auguste Rodin, and Gustav Klimt, just to mention a few, serve as outstanding examples of this historical transformation. Furthermore, the exhibition includes early drawings by Picasso and those of Spanish artists like Nonell, which signify a turning point in the intricate history of visual arts in our country—a transformation that had previously begun with artists such as Darío de Regoyos.
Ignacio Pinazo
Couple at a Table, c. 1907
Graphite on paper, 16 x 21 cm.
Egon Schiele
Schlafendes Mädchen [Sleeping Girl], 1909
Watercolor, pastel and graphite on paper, 22.4 x 22.2 cm.
Cubism initiated a radical transformation of pictorial language. Fundación MAPFRE‘s collection allows us to explore how this transformation is reflected in the drawings of Picasso, Juan Gris, and André Lhote. However, the influence of Cubism extends beyond the more orthodox works; it can also be seen in drawings that must not conform to this movement but still acknowledge it. Such is the case of Luis Fernández and Rafael Barradas, the creator of vibrationism. The richness of Surrealism is evident in the vastly different works of Joan Miró and Salvador Dalí, as well as in the drawings of Óscar Domínguez from the 1930s. It would be entirely inappropriate to think of contemporary art as a linear succession of styles. The interplay of various influences and poetic expressions allows us to speak of a tapestry in which several forms and motifs intertwine. The works of Henri Matisse, Julio González, and Alberto Sánchez resist rigid classification, as do those of Daniel Vázquez Díaz, and in more recent times, those of Antoni Tàpies and Eduardo Chillida.
Drawing is one of our most intimate and immediate forms of manifestation —an idea, a discovery, a method of expression and introspection for the artist. There is a direct relationship between the artists and the paper on which they work. The drawings produced by great artists coexist with the scribbles we often make unconsciously. Drawing ceased to be merely a mediator; it became a unique and autonomous work of art in the 18th century, and it has remained so ever since.
Cubism, with Pablo Picasso, Juan Gris and André Lhote as some of its main protagonists, brought about a radical transformation of pictorial language. Lothe, remembered as one of the great theorists of this trend, shows, through the drawing we present, how the abstract and the figurative are intertwined in calm volumetric planes. Likewise,
the figure of Albert Cleizes stands out, who settled in Barcelona in 1916 and held his first solo exhibition at the Dalmau Gallery; his works from this period deconstructed objects in geometric perspectives, but without losing reference to the real world.
In an almost parallel way, artists such as Alexander Archipenko or Kurt Schwitters focused on the more constructive spirit of painting, as we can see in Collage No. 2, ca. 1913 or in Untitled Miniature, 1920; The latter already had a clearly Dadaist spirit that links directly with the teachings of Francis Picabia and Serge Charchoune.
Auguste Rodin
Femme de dos, relevant son châle vert à la taille.
[Woman with her back turned with a green shawl], c. 1900.
For the first time, Schwitters integrated waste materials into his production through his Merz concept: all material was susceptible to preservation, all human creation, especially those that lacked utility, was a work of art.
The privileged presence of Spanish artists in Paris allowed them to witness first-hand the gestation of surrealism. Some of the painters we present today were active members of the group and fundamental figures of the movement. Such is the case of Salvador Dalí, Joan Miró, Luis Fernández or Óscar Domínguez, the latter, creator of decalcomania, a technique that is directly inscribed in Breton’s surrealist circle.
Edward Burne-Jones
Portrait of a Young Woman, Possibly María Zambaco, 1874
The exhibition tour begins with drawings by Spanish authors still linked to tradition, but with features that make us think of that beginning of the century that was to come. Mariano Fortuny, Joaquín Sorolla and Francisco Pradilla y Ortiz were cosmopolitan artists, they worked outside our borders and, in addition to achieving notable success, they learned about the works of masters such as Edgar Degas, Auguste Rodin or Egon Schiele.
Significant is the presence of Pablo Picasso in the French capital, where he developed much of his career and whose work served as a link between the most innovative trends that were developing in Paris and the art that was produced in Spain.
The drawings of Darío de Regoyos, Joaquim Sunyer, Enric Casanovas, Manuel Ángeles Ortiz or Francis Picabia, dialogue with each other to tell us about a change of era and a heterogeneous art that includes aspects of the avant-garde movements through the aforementioned Picasso, but also of the first Salvador Dalí and Joaquín Torres García, to name just a few examples.
The relations between France and Spain resulted in a strong surrealist imprint in our country, which would extend over time and would continue along with other trends until the middle of the 20th century.
Once again, we realize how inappropriate it is to think that contemporary art is a linear succession of styles. The “new realism” of Arturo Souto or Joaquín Peinado coexists with the surrealist influence in the works of Julio González and Alberto Sánchez or in the more informalist ones of Tàpies and Chillida.
As the years went by, the boundary between artistic genres blurred into a creative universe that mixed drawing with painting, sculpture with action and architecture. An example of this attitude is offered by the drawing by Eduardo Chillida that is presented in the exhibition: it is difficult to establish a solution of continuity between relief sculpture, collage and drawing. The texture and chromaticism of the paper fragments evoke visual qualities typical of iron and of the wood, but the drawing is present in the white of the paper, in turn empty in front of a paradoxically flat mass. The traditional conception of the hand that draws has been replaced by a hand that cuts, composes, pastes… The collection has led us to a different perspective: not the traditional drawing, now a work in which the drawing participates.