The exhibition brings to the Canary Islands, for the first time, a selection of works by Esteban Vicente, who is regarded as one of the most original figures in 20th-century Spanish painting. On display are works by an artist whose career spans both Spain and the United States.
Vicente was born in 1903 in Turégano, in the province of Segovia, and died in 2001 in Bridgehampton. He studied at the Escuela de Bellas Artes de San Fernando in Madrid, came into contact with the cultural circles of the Generación del 27, and became acquainted with the European avant-garde during his travels to Paris. Following a period characterised by Mediterranean landscapes, particularly during his time in Ibiza, he left Spain at the outbreak of the Civil War and settled in New York.
In the 1940s, he increasingly turned to abstraction. Cubism and collage opened up new possibilities for him to shape the pictorial space. In the 1950s, he was closely associated with the New York School and Abstract Expressionism, yet developed his own visual language characterised by colour, light, transparency and spatial order. Landscape remained present in his work as memory, atmosphere and structure.
Alongside his artistic practice, Vicente taught at prestigious institutions in the USA. His works combine European tradition with the renewal of contemporary American painting. The exhibition is on display at the Fundación Cristino de Vera-Espacio Cultural CajaCanarias in La Laguna.