Benjamín Palencia

BENJAMÍN PALENCIA (Barrax, Albacete, 1894 - Madrid, 1980).
"Clown. 1948.
Ink on paper.
Signed and dated in the lower right corner.
Work verified by Ramón Palencia
Measurements: 44 x 28 cm.
Founder of the School of Vallecas together with Alberto Sánchez, sculptor, Benjamín Palencia was one of the most important heirs of the poetics of the Castilian landscape typical of the Generation of 98. When he was only fifteen years old, Palencia left his native town and settled in Madrid to develop his training through his frequent visits to the Prado Museum, as he always rejected the official teachings of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando. In 1925 he took part in the Exhibition of Iberian Artists held at the Retiro Palace in Madrid, and in 1926 he travelled to Paris for the first time. There he met Picasso, Gargallo and Miró and came into contact with the collage technique, which he later applied to his work, incorporating new materials such as sand and ashes. It was during this Parisian stay that Palencia's work took on a surrealist tone, evidenced by an increasingly greater expressive freedom that reached its peak in his mature period. On his return to Madrid he founded the Vallecas School (1927) and made his individual debut at the Museum of Modern Art (1928). Palencia gradually abandoned still lifes in favour of Castilian landscapes. This personal landscape aesthetic reached its culmination in the Vallecas School and, after a brilliant surrealist incursion in the early 1930s, when the Civil War broke out Palencia remained in Madrid and, like his fellow artists of his generation, underwent a period of profound crisis. When the war ended, between 1939 and 1940 his painting took a radical turn; he abandoned cubist influences in search of an art with a strong chromatic impact. Focusing on his work as a landscape painter, in 1942 Palencia returned to the experience of the Vallecas School together with the young painters Álvar Delgado, Carlos Pascual de Lara, Gregorio del Olmo, Enrique Núñez Casteló and Francisco San José. His work would include images of the Castilian countryside and its peasants and animals; once fully consolidated, in 1943 he won the first medal at the National Exhibition of Fine Arts and in 1944 he was selected to take part in the Salón de los Once de Eugenio D'Ors in Madrid. The following year he was awarded the medal of honour at the National Exhibition, although he gave it up in order to facilitate its award to José Gutiérrez Solana, who died a few days before the jury's decision. From this decade onwards he exhibited his work in art centres and galleries such as the Círculo de Bellas Artes in Madrid and the Estilo gallery, and in 1946 he was once again selected for the Salón de los Once. He also began to take part in international exhibitions, such as those of Spanish Contemporary Art held in Buenos Aires in 1947.