Josep Guinovart
(Barcelona, 1927-2007) Spanish painter.At fourteen years of age he began working as a wall painter, later entering Llotja.In 1948 he held his first exhibition at the Syra Galleries in Barcelona, dedicating himself entirely to painting from 1951.A year later, after having contacted the avant-garde group Dau al Set (in the illustration of some of whose magazines he came to collaborate ), he obtained a scholarship to study in Paris.
Josep Guinovart
Upon his return, Josep Guinovart strengthened his ties with some members of Dau al Set (Joan Brossa, Joan Ponç, Modest Cuixart, Antoni Tàpies and Joan Josep Tharrats, among others) and was actively engaged in commissioning mural art, decorations and figurines for theatrical works, illustration works, poster design, etc.His scenographic creations include those of works by Federico García Lorca such as Bodas de Sangre , and among his illustrations are perhaps particularly significant those of the book Poesies by Salvat Papasseit.
As of 1976, he must add to his previous occupations that of engraver, as he undertook the execution of several editions of lithographs and etchings for the Editorial Polígrafa de Barcelona.He is also the author of various three-dimensional montages, such as the one entitled contorn-extorn , presented in 1978 at the Maeght Gallery in Barcelona, later donated to the city's Museum of Modern Art.
Since 1948, when he presented his first solo exhibition at the Syra Galleries in Barcelona, his exhibitions in Barcelona, Madrid, Palma de Mallorca, Valencia, Paris, New York, Basel, Chicago and in many other Spanish, European and American cities, as well as its participation in exhibitions of contemporary Catalan and Spanish art, salons, the Hispano-American Biennial, the Venice Biennale and other international avant-garde art meetings.
Josep Guinovart's work evolves from an interesting figurative stage, with surrealist and cubist influences, in which memorable fabrics crystallized for their nobility of workmanship and genuine popular vigor, among which Surprise ( 1951) and Family (1952).
Abstract currents and informalism opened new perspectives in Guinovart's aesthetics, which began to incorporate into his work all the potential of resources of a free manipulation of matter and the object, initiating a series of experiences based on burnt wooden structures, drums, waste objects, boxes, polychrome coatings, games of allusions, signs, material formations, etc., thus generating a dialogue between the artist's plastic and subjective expression and his living environment, his symbols , ghosts and contradictions.
Going through this process of incessant transformation, we can come across two white breasts sitting in fraternal dialogue on a toilet, with a perch with the appearance of a spectrum fluctuating between references to Guernica by Picasso, with the legendary face of Che Guevara under a menacing cloud of symbols of North American imperialism and with all kinds of sculptural-pictorial acrobatics characterized by their expressive forcefulness and by the constants of line, gesture and color that define the agitated and original inner world of his creator, both in his work on easel and in his spectacular montages or scenographies, expressionist and lyrical languages are combined.
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