LUIS FERNÃNDEZ LÓPEZ (Oviedo, 1900- Paris, 1973).
"Figura", 1939.
Ink and pencil on card.
Slight damage to the paper in the corners.
Signed and dated in the lower right corner.
Provenance: private collection conceived since the 1970s between London and Madrid.
Measurements: 65 x 50 cm.
A desolate face opens its mouth in an expression of pain, captured by a great technical handling of the artist who manipulates the brushstrokes in a horizontal way, and manages to capture the breathing of the protagonist. This work is part of an exceptional and unique period in which the artist approached an aesthetic transition in which the consolidated characteristics of his artistic production can be appreciated, although from a completely new perspective. Influenced by the cruelty of the Civil War, this period shows a greater reflection of violent, tragic and emphatic forms.
An Asturian painter belonging to the Parisian avant-garde, Luis Fernández left his homeland when he was only nine years old, after being orphaned. He then moved with his brothers to Madrid, where his maternal grandfather lived. However, his grandfather died shortly afterwards, and Fernández had to move again, this time to Barcelona, to his maternal uncle's house. His maternal uncle made him abandon his studies, and he entered a jewellery workshop as an apprentice at a very young age. However, his artistic vocation had already awakened, and in 1912 he enrolled in the evening classes at the Llotja School. In 1924, when he finished his studies, Fernández went to Paris, where he became part of the Montparnasse artistic milieu while earning his living by working in a printing house. He came into contact with leading figures of the time such as Brancusi, Braque, Ozenfant and Julio González, and also with the avant-garde artistic movements then developing in the heart of Paris. He first experimented along the lines of purism derived from Cubist language, later evolving towards Neo-Plasticism and, finally, Surrealism. Finally, in 1933, he left his job to devote himself fully to painting. During this period he became friends with Picasso, with whom he collaborated on several projects and whose work was to exert a key influence on his aesthetic. However, after a period of experimentation marked by different influences, Fernández found the maturity of his work in a personal and hermetic plastic universe, the result of slow, analytical work that went beyond the formal to delve into the spirit of objects. The result is a work in which each brushstroke, each stroke, is the fruit of profound meditation. However, the scarcity of his output and poor relations with art dealers meant that Fernández's career was far removed from the financial success enjoyed by other artists in Paris at the time. In his last years, however, the critics recovered his work for the public, and in 1972, a year before his death, he was the subject of an important anthological exhibition held at the National Centre of Contemporary Art in Paris. More recently, following the centenary of his birth, successive exhibitions of his work were held in Spain, and Alfonso Palacio, professor of art history at the University of Oviedo, dedicated his doctoral thesis to him, the basis for a future catalogue raisonné of his work. Luis Fernández is currently mainly represented in the Museo de Bellas Artes de Asturias, the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, the Patio Herreriano in Valladolid, the Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao and the Telefónica Collection, among other important collections.