Artist: Enrique Grau Araujo (1920-2004)Technique: Oil on woodMeasurements: 45 x 25 cmSigned: Upper left corner "Grau 55"Provenance: Private CollectionBiography:Son of a family from Cartagena de Indias, he was born in Panama and did his first studies in Bogotá. He obtained a government scholarship to continue his training at the Art Students' League of New York, where he stayed between 1940 and 1943, and then continued his studies in Italy, where he perfected his technique as a muralist, painter and draftsman, achieving great expertise in all the facets. In the United States he studied with Tadeusz Kantor and was also a disciple of the German artist George Grosz, from whom he initially took his expressionist conception of art and painting, to which he would give a marked critical accent.His first works, in a style close to impressionism, had a prominent figurative character. However, after he left for Florence in 1954, his paintings acquired geometric and abstract traits that showed the influence of the cubism of the Spanish Pablo Picasso, as can be seen in several charcoal works, including Still Life with a Skull. In 1957 he won the first prize for painting at the X Salón de Artistas Colombianos; In works such as Elegía para un mártir there was room for expressionist features inspired by the style of his compatriot Alejandro Obregón, with whom he had promoted the Salón de los 26 in Bogotá in the previous decade.From 1959 his work becomes frankly realistic: he is interested in the human figure and its environment. His work then evolved towards a new academicism, making a recreation of reality; Taking advantage of his experience with geometric structures, he gave great solidity to forms with a naturalistic tendency. Passionate about volume, round and concrete shapes and an extremely baroque decor in terms of furniture, decorations and costumes that accompany his characters, his world is nostalgic and variegated.

This is in very good condition