Albert Ràfols-Casamada

Albert Rafols Casamada (Barcelona, 1923-2009) is an internationally recognized Spanish painter and graphic artist. His work is characterized by a compositional elegance of orthogonal structures combined with an emotional and luminous chromatic sensitivity. After showing an interesting relationship, in the sixties and seventies, with movements such as "neodada" and new realism, his work has focused on purely and intensely pictorial values: color fields in expressive harmony on which charcoal lines stand out. , that relate them in a harmonic gestural line. At the same time, his interest in art pedagogy led him to found, in 1967, the Escola Eina. He studied architecture and painting in Barcelona, and received a strong creative impulse in Paris, where, in the fifties, he was introduced to post-cubist figurative painting. Knowledge of the work of Picasso, Matisse, Braque, Miró, etc... deeply influenced the young painter, as did his theoretical approach to American abstract expressionism. When he finally returned to Barcelona in 1955, he embarked on his own artistic path, which, it is well known, has led him to the creation of a vast body of work that has brought him international recognition. He has published about twenty books, mostly on poetry and art.Among the prizes he has received are the 1980 National Prize for Plastic Arts, the 1981 Cáceres Painting Prize, the 1982 Creu de Sant Jordi of the Generalitat de Catalunya, the 1985 Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres and the 1991 Prize for the Arts of the CEOE, among others. The work of Albert Rafols Casamada can be found in the most important museums and public collections on five continents, such as the Joan Miró Foundation, the Caixa de Pensions (Barcelona), the Reina Sofía Art Center, and the Círculo de Bellas Artes (Madrid), Guggenheim Museum, and Museum of Modern Art (New York), University of New Mexico, Harvard University, Menil Collection (Houston), Museum of Modern Art (Los Angeles), Vincent Van Gogh Foundation (Arles), Bibliotheque Nationale and Center Georges Pompidou (Paris), British Museum and Tate Gallery (London).