Rafael Canogar

RAFAEL CANOGAR GÓMEZ (Toledo, 1935).
Untitled.
Silkscreen on paper, H.C. copy.
Signed and justified by hand.
Measurements: 55,50 x 76 cm.

Rafael Canogar was formed with the painter Daniel Vázquez Díaz between 1949 and 1954. During these years he will work in the line of the avant-garde, entering soon in the way of the abstraction. Co-founder of the group "El Paso" in 1957, during the fifties he developed a fully informalist work, which drifts during the sixties in a complex figuration increasingly narrative. In the sixties he achieved international recognition as a guest professor at the Milles College in California to teach the art course 1965-66, and as a guest artist at the Tamarind Lithography Workshop in Los Angeles in 1969. Also, between 1972 and 1974 he was invited by the D.A.A.D. of Berlin as resident artist. During his maturity stage, from 1975, Canogar invents a new iconography, his own and personal, which he expresses through the mask, the head, the face, as a representation of the man who loses his individuality and becomes a plastic sign. His work will also be recognized in Spain, and during the eighties he will be a member of the Advisory Council of the General Directorate of Fine Arts of the Ministry of Culture, of the Board of Trustees of the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Madrid, and a member of the Board of Directors of the National Heritage. Throughout his career, Canogar has held countless solo and group exhibitions. Among the personal exhibitions, several have been retrospectives, among others: Museo Nacional de Arte Contemporáneo and Biblioteca Nacional de Madrid, Museo de Arte Moderno de la Villa de Paris, Sonia Heine Foundation in Oslo, Konsthalle de Lund in Sweden, Paris Art Center, Bochum Art Museum in Germany, Istituto di Storia dell'Arte de Parma, Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, Fundación Casa del Cordón de Burgos, Museo de Santa Cruz de Toledo, Museo Reina Sofía in Madrid, etc. Canogar has held several workshops and given countless lectures in various European and American countries, and participated in juries of international awards and biennials. He has also been awarded several prizes and distinctions, among them the Grand Prize of the Biennial of São Paulo (1971), the Grand Prize of the International Painting Triennial of Sofia (1982), the National Prize of Plastic Arts in Madrid (1982), etc. He has also been named Chevalier de l'Ordre des Artes et Lettres of France, has received the Encomienda de la Orden de Isabel la Católica, is a full member of the Academia de San Fernando and Doctor Honoris Causa by the UNED. Canogar is currently recognized in the most important collections.