Albert Ràfols-Casamada
Albert Ràfols-Casamada was born in 1923 in Barcelona. There he began to pursue a career in architecture, but soon left, convinced that he must devote himself exclusively to art. Thanks to a scholarship, he traveled to France in 1950, where he learned about post-Cubist figurative painting and created his early works. Inspired by painters such as Picasso, Braque and Matisse, Ràfols-Casamada began to paint his first abstract works.
Already immersed in pure abstraction, Ràfols-Casamada created works like Cantera (1958), characterized by the presence of orthogonal forms and structural composition on the canvas created from a soft yet very bright color. Invested in the pedagogy of art, he created the first Spanish school of art in 1964, Elisava, running it until 1967, year in which he left this school to create another, Eina, secular and focused on the most contemporary trends of the time. In the 70s, his works were characterized by the use of horizontal and vertical planes that maximized the chromatic contrasts. Works such as Invernadero (1982) are the faithful representation of this trend.
Albert Ràfols-Casamada has earned throughout his career a great appreciation of his work and his contribution to Spanish art, including awards given by the Spanish …
Albert Ràfols-Casamada was born in 1923 in Barcelona. There he began to pursue a career in architecture, but soon left, convinced that he must devote himself exclusively to art. Thanks to a scholarship, he traveled to France in 1950, where he learned about post-Cubist figurative painting and created his early works. Inspired by painters such as Picasso, Braque and Matisse, Ràfols-Casamada began to paint his first abstract works.
Already immersed in pure abstraction, Ràfols-Casamada created works like Cantera (1958), characterized by the presence of orthogonal forms and structural composition on the canvas created from a soft yet very bright color. Invested in the pedagogy of art, he created the first Spanish school of art in 1964, Elisava, running it until 1967, year in which he left this school to create another, Eina, secular and focused on the most contemporary trends of the time. In the 70s, his works were characterized by the use of horizontal and vertical planes that maximized the chromatic contrasts. Works such as Invernadero (1982) are the faithful representation of this trend.
Albert Ràfols-Casamada has earned throughout his career a great appreciation of his work and his contribution to Spanish art, including awards given by the Spanish Ministry of Culture (National Plastic Arts Prize in 1980), the Legion Honor of the French Government (1991) or the Visual Arts Award of Catalonia (2003). Throughout his career Ràfols-Casamada exhibited throughout Europe and North and South America. In 2001, a retrospective of his work was shown at the Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art and the Valencian Institute of Modern Art. In 2009 he was awarded a tribute at the National Museum of Catalan Art.
Courtesy of Artetrama
Guggenheim Museum, New York
Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris
British Museum, London
Mie Prefectural Art Museum, Japan
The Meadows Museum in Dallas, Texas
Museo Nacional de Arte Contemporáneo Rufino Tamayo, Mexico
Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid
Museo de Arte Abstracto, Cuenca
Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona, MACBA