20th-21st century Spanish

A precociously talented artist, Fontela enrolled at the School of Arts and Crafts in Avilés at the age of fifteen where he studied under Amado González Hevia, “Favila” (1954). Shortly afterwards, he had a solo exhibition at the BBVA exhibition hall in Oviedo, where he showed his first paintings.

In 2005 he moved to New York to study Fine Art at The Arts Students League, and set up his studio-workshop there. As a result of his already incipient career, that same year he was awarded the BMW prize for painting in Madrid. Two years later, the Association of Art Critics of Madrid awarded him the prize for Best Artist at the Estampa graphic arts fair. And, in 2014, he received the Princess of Girona Foundation Arts and Literature Award.

The core theme of Hugo Fontela’s painting is landscape, following an approach that oscillates between figuration and abstraction. The places he depicts in his paintings are those that have moved him particularly at some stage in his life: “My pictures are blurred images, landscapes from my memory”. Technique is highly important in his output and among the many great artists he looks up to are Giorgio Morandi (1890-1964), Cy Tombly (1928-2011), Miguel Ángel Campano (1948-2018), Anselm Kiefer (1945), Miquel Barceló (1957) and José María Sicilia (1954).

Fontela’s work is included in major collections in Spain and worldwide, including Spain’s National Library, the National Chalcography Museum, the Princess of Girona Foundation Collection, the Museum of Fine Arts of Asturias, Museu de Montserrat, the Masaveu Collection, the Gabarrón Foundation and the Hispanic Society of America, among others.