Juan Genovés

Valencia, 1930

The work of Juan Genovés (Valencia, 1930) is set within the critic realism of the 50s, movement which tended towards existentialism. Educated at the San Carlos Valencian School, he personalized the social painting of the sixties and seventies, and was part of the most active groups at the time (Hondo, Los Siete, Parpalló...).

The human figure is always the main element in his work, either when it is present or not, or when reflected in shades. All the oneiric weight of existential anxiety lies on the human figure, which extols his particular style.

The key themes of his works are forceful and contrast with the liveliness of the different formats used in compositions with a marked symbolism. From a technical point of view, his works resemble photographs, with constant changes in the perspectives of motifs. This can be clearly seen in El Abrazo -also known as Amnistía- one of his most renowned pictorial works (1976) whose sculptural reproduction, with the same name and done by Genovés himself, can be seen in the Plaza de Antón Martín (Madrid) as a tribute to the lawyers murdered in 1977 in their firm in Atocha street.

Genovés has been awarded with important prizes: the Honorable Mention of the Venice Biennale in 1996, the National Prize for Plastic Arts in Spain in 1984, and the Prize for Plastic Arts of the Valencian Autonomous Region (Spain, 2002). His work can be seen in important public collections in the US and Europe. In Madrid, his pictorial works can be seen in the Reina Sofía Museum.

2009 Juan Genovés Energy in Expansion Acrylic on canvas and board 142 x 125 cm.