Francisco Sebastián Nicolau

Valencia, 1956

"…I remember that as a child, my father used to describe the landscapes we travelled through to my brothers and me. He did so through the professional lens of someone who has painted or hopes to paint. Therefore, the colours were not themselves, but the nomenclature of those that had to represent them, and feelings were translated into artistic terms (space, time, painting)..."

This is how Sebastián Nicolau described the beginnings of his vocation as a painter and, in particular, his interest in nature and landscapes, which are the leitmotif and communication method which he has used throughout his career.

After completing his studies in Fine Arts at the San Carlos Academy in Valencia, 1974-1979, he moved into graphic design, where he alternated between his own creativity and teaching at the Valencia School of Applied Arts and Crafts.

His work developed among traditional concepts and conceptual proposals, with an interest in representing flowers and fruit, that was something of a continuation of the Valencian tradition. His work “Bosque oscuro tras un níspero” (Dark Woods behind a Medlar Tree), which he painted in 1991 for the UEE calendar, fits into this category.

He was considered a master of realist figuration, although at times the combination of various different languages in his works, and introduction of double meanings and artistic treatment that was not realism, also separate him from this tendency. Since his very first involvement in the National Contemporary Art Exhibition in 1972 his name has been linked to various collective shows, and he has held individual exhibitions at galleries worldwide and has been represented in permanent collections in prestigious museums such as the Institut Valenciá d’Art Modern.

Critic Adolfo Castaño says of him that: "Faced with paintings by a new-generation realist like Sebastián Nicolau we always find ourselves wondering what possible underworld lies under his forms, what appearances are really announcing. And we refuse to reduce his pictorial expression to a single objectivity in which a thing is simply a thing, and nothing more, because vegetation shows, still lifes present and landscapes reveal… The small format of his paintings highlights the need to make what is being painted intimate, and counterposes the need to describe with the need to interiorise what is being expressed, and it is precisely this which imbues it with meaning."

1991 Francisco Sebastián Nicolau Dark woods behind a medlar tree Oil on canvas 175 x 93 cm.