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Basic Data

Antonio Saura is a Spanish artist from the era of modern art. As an adolescent he taught himself how to draw and paint.

  • Born: 22. September 1930
  • Died: 1998
  • Place of birth: Huesca, Spain
  • Nationality: Spanish art
  • Similar artists: Antonio Tapies, Eduardo Chillida
  • Era: modern art 
  • Stylistic direction: Surrealism

His role models were the old masters such as Velazquez and Goya. But also contemporary artists such as Hans Jean Arp, Yves Tanguy and artists from the surrealist group have influenced his art. 

Biography

The Spanish artist Antonio Saura was born in Huesca in 1930. A severe tuberculosis disease forced the teenage Saura to five years of bed rest. It was during this time that he began writing and painting. His early experiments were influenced by artists such as Hans Arp, Joan Miró and Yves Tanguy. He produced numerous surreal-looking imaginary landscape paintings. During his stay in Pairs, however, Saura realized that Surrealism could not offer him a permanent artistic home. From the 1950s on, his style became increasingly abstracted and his color palette more reduced and somber. From the 1960s, he also created sculptures in metal.

From 1967, the artist, who was active in the resistance against the Franco regime, lived mainly in Paris. Antonio Saura died in 1998 in Cuenca, Spain. His works were not only honored with numerous solo exhibitions, he was also given a large exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam as early as 1960. Most recently, the Museum Wiesbaden organized a comprehensive retrospective on the artist in 2013. 

 

Exhibitions

  • 23.02.2023 – 21.07.2023 Laxeiro and the Art of His Time - Museo de Arte Contemporánea de Vigo (MARCO), Vigo.
  • 08.09.2022 – 26.02.2023 Sections / Intersections. 25 Years of the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao Collection - Museo Guggenheim de Arte Moderno y Contemporáneo, Bilbao.
  • 25.11.21 – 13.11.22 Personae. Masks against barbarism – Es Baluard Museu d’Art Modern, Palma de Mallorca.
  • 11.09.21 – 30.01.22 Sobressalto - Coleção Norlinda e José Lima – Centro Artes Agueda, Agueda.
  • 19.02.20 – 17.05.20 Antonio Saura: Mentira y sueño de Franco – Círculo de Bellas Artes de Madrid.
  • 14.08.20 – 04.01.21 Gezeichnete Stadt. Arbeiten auf Papier 1945 bis heute, Berlinische Galerie Berlin.
  • 19.02.20 – 17.05.20 Antonio Saura: Mentira y sueño de Franco, Circulo de Bellas Artes de Madrid (CBA), Madrid.
  • 15.05.19 – 25.09.19 Picasso and the Exodus- Les Abattoirs - Frac Midi-Pyrénées, Toulouse.
  • 07.07.18 – 25.08.19 ACCROCHAGE /// DAMIEN HIRST – "Works from Schizophrenogenesis" - Galerie Boisserée, Cologne.

 

Awards

  • 1960: Guggenheim Prize New York.
  • 1979: Prize of the First European Graphic Biennale, Heidelberg.
  • 1982: Gold Medal for Fine Arts of the Spanish State.
  • 1995: Grand Art Prize of the City of Paris.

 

Literature

  • Antonio Saura – Malerei 1956–1985, exhibition catalogue by the Ministerio de Cultura/Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, Rainer Michael Mason, Madrid/Munich, 1990.

 

Collections

Germany

 

Netherlands

 

France

 

Spain

 

USA

 

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