20th - 21st Century Spanish

Thanks to his mother, who was an amateur painter, Barceló was introduced to art at a very early age and he is now widely regarded as one of the most seminal European artists of his generation.

He trained at the School of Arts and Crafts in Palma de Mallorca until 1973, and later attended the Sant Jordi School of Fine Arts in Barcelona, although he left without graduating. In 1981 he took part at the Sao Paulo Biennial and in 1982 at documenta VII in Kassel. Since then his reputation grew rapidly and he began to be invited to take part in major international exhibitions.

Initially grounded in conceptual and abstract principles, in the late 1970s his work became influenced by a brand of akin to Jackson Pollock (1912-1956) as well as by and by Spanish artists like Joan Miró (1899-1989) or Antoni Tàpies (1923-2012). In the 1980s Barceló began to paint still lifes in earthy and grey tones, until his first trip to Mali in 1988. There, in the middle of the desert, Barceló found a source of inspiration that led him to spend long periods in that country. The palette of his work then changed to white, a reflection of the desert light, and he created works laden with matter and with relief.

To this day Barceló still experiments with materials. He has presented books like Cuadernos de África or Cuadernos del Himalaya, and creates sculptures, many of them inspired by African fauna.

By the late 1980s Barceló was already a hugely successful artist, winning the National Visual Arts Prize in 1986. Later, he was granted the Prince of Asturias Award (2003) and a honoris causa doctorate degree from Universidad Pompeu Fabra (2012). In 1996, the Centre Georges Pompidou of Paris organised a major retrospective of his work.