Antonio Saura

Antonio Saura - Renounced conventions as an autodidact

Antonio Saura was born in Huesca on 22nd September 1930. He did not initially consider a career in art, but a serious bout of tuberculosis forced him to reorient his life and brought him into contact with writing and painting. As an autodidact, he refined his skills and initially created a large number of surrealistic-like works in bright colours. He owed important influences from this early period to Yves Tanguy and Hans Arp. With his imaginary landscapes, he wished to open up access to a kind of "dream world" for himself and his audience, which he constantly reinterpreted and examined. In Paris, he met the French poet and surrealist Benjamin Péret, but it soon became clear that Surrealism could not offer Antonio Saura a permanent artistic home. He therefore left Paris with his friend, the painter Simon Hantaï, and turned to new techniques, finding great pleasure in grattage, which he developed into his own colourful, abstract style in a radical departure from any systematic approach.

Development from surrealist to expressionist

Antonio Saura combined his passion for literature and the visual arts by creating numerous illustrations for books, including texts by George Orwell, Franz Kafka and Christine Nöstlinger. In this way, from 1959 onwards he created an extensive body of graphic work, which also included illustrations for Don Quixote. During his membership of the artists' group El Paso, which he co-founded in 1957 and to which he remained loyal until its dissolution in 1960, he met the art critic Michel Tapié. Saura's access to established artistic circles paid off when gallery owner Rodolphe Stadler gave him his first solo exhibition and introduced him to important contemporary figures such as Pierre Matisse in New York and Otto van de Loo in Munich. Saura remained associated with Stadler for the rest of his life and exhibited many of his works with him. His self-restriction to a narrow colour palette, consisting almost exclusively of brown, black and grey, ultimately became characteristic for the artist, and used these monochrome colours to create his large-format series of paintings, which bore programmatic titles such as Crowds or Sweat Cloths and often conveyed a feeling of trepidation to the viewer.

Master of Art Informel - No rules, no boundaries, no system

Antonio Saura drew on a wide range of influences when creating his art, including great role models from recognised art history as well as simple porn and pin-up pictures. Politics also left its mark on him - Franco's seizure of power upset him immensely and prompted him to take a clear stance in many public discussions and debates. He pursued his artistic path with similar determination, ignoring rules, boundaries and established systems. Thanks to his high degree of independence, he embodied Spanish Art Informel in a unique and unrivalled way and left deep footprints behind him.

Antonio Saura died of leukemia on 22nd July 1998.