Josep Guinovart

JOSEP GUINOVART (Barcelona, 1927 - 2007).
Untitled, 1977.
Oil and collage on uralite.
Signed and dated on the lower left.
Measurements: 105 x 114 x 9 cm.
Josep Guinovart was a born experimenter with forms, textures, supports and languages. This is evident in this composition in which the play of waves in the material is used by the artist to emphasise the effect of collage and fragmentary figures (a head, the wounded body of a bull...) The forms seem to compose and decompose themselves between blinks of an eye, in an orchestrated composition that appeals to the surrounding space.
Josep Guinovart trained at the Escuela de Maestros Pintores, at the Escuela de Artes y Oficios and in the classes of the FAD. He had his first solo exhibition at the Syra galleries in Barcelona in 1948. He soon acquired solid prestige, collaborated with Dau al Set and took part in the October, Jazz and Eleven Salons. In the 1950s, thanks to a grant, he lived in Paris, where he became deeply acquainted with the work of Cézanne and Matisse, who, together with Miró and Gaudí, were to be his most important influences. In 1955, together with Aleu, Cuixart, Muxart, Mercadé, Tàpies and Tharrats, he formed the Taüll group, which brought together the avant-garde artists of the time. Around 1957 he began an informalist and abstract tendency, with a strong material presence both through the incorporation of various elements and objects (burnt wood, boxes, discarded objects) and through the application of techniques such as collage and assemblage. From the 1960s onwards he moved away from the poetics of Informalism and began to produce works full of signs and gestures, which contain a strong expressive charge in the lines and colours. During the 1970s he systematically used materials such as sand, earth, clay, straw and fibre cement, and in the following decade he focused on experimenting with the three-dimensional projection of his works, which took the form of the creation of environments or spatial settings such as the one entitled Contorn-extorn (1978). Guinovart's artistic output is very varied: mural paintings, theatre sets and scenographies, such as the one made for Federico García Lorca's Blood Wedding, book illustrations, poster design, tapestries and sculptures. He took part in the Biennials of São Paulo (1952 and 1957), Alexandria (1955) and Venice (1958, 1962 and 1982), and his prizes include the City of Barcelona in 1981, the National Plastic Arts Prize in 1990 and the Generalitat's Plastic Arts Prize in 1990. In 1994 the Espai Guinovart, a private foundation with a permanent exhibition of the artist's work, was opened in Agramunt, Lérida. He is represented in the Museums of Contemporary Art in Barcelona, Madrid and Mexico City, the Museum of Open Air Sculpture in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, the Museo de Bellas Artes in Bilbao, the Museo San Telmo in San Sebastián, the Museo Eusebio Sempere in Alicante, the Museo de Navarra in Tafalla, the Casa de las Américas in Havana, the Bocchum Museum in Germany, the Museo de Bellas Artes in Long Island, New York, and the Museo Patio Herreriano in Valladolid.