Antonio Saura

Painter, born in Huesca on September 22, 1930 and died in 1998 in Cuenca. A prolonged and early illness led him to begin his pictorial dedication in a self-taught manner, which very soon turned toward surrealist paths. On the occasion of his first exhibition in Madrid, in 1951, he published the manifesto "Programio," within that surrealist conception of art, of which his works "The Marquis de Sade and a Virgin Adolescent" (1947) or the series on "Constellations" are examples.
In 1952 he traveled to Paris, and evolved toward abstraction and gestural art. He became in 1957 the theorist of the introduction of informalism in Spain, with the founding of the El Paso Group. Among his extensive production, the series Crucifixions, History of Spain, Multitudes, Imaginary Portraits, Saurimachies, etc. can be cited. Two important works of his are the triptych of the "Great Crucifixion" (1957-58) in the Art Museum of Veruela (Zaragoza), and the gigantic mural for the ceiling of the headquarters of the Provincial Council of Huesca, "Elegy" (1987), where he incorporates great richness of color to his usual ochre, gray, black and white ranges.
In that same vein, in 1997 he created for the first and only time so far, a design for a ceramic mural, which is integrated into an urban and architectural element: the frontispiece of the main entrance of the Grancasa shopping center, in Zaragoza.
Saura is also a scholar of art, who has obsessively analyzed the work of Goya, and especially "The Dog" that decorated one of the walls of the Quinta del Sordo, a figure on which he has repeatedly carried out studies and series. Less known, but equally brilliant, is his work as an illustrator, in which the drawings for an edition of "Pinocchio" stand out. In 1996 the Government of Aragon awarded him the Prize