20th century Spanish
A Spanish sculptor, painter and printmaker, Gabino began training at the San Carlos School of Fine Arts in Valencia, while also working at the studio of his father, the sculptor Alfonso Gabino. In the late 1940s he settled in Madrid, furthering his training through scholarships that took him to travel around Europe (Rome, Milan, Paris and Hamburg) and the USA (New York) from 1948 to 1959, giving him an opportunity to acquaint himself with the latest trends and to meet artists of the stature of Lucio Fontana (
1899-1968), Max Ernst (1891-1976), Alexander Calder (1898-1976), Alexander Archipenko (
1887-
1964), Louis Kahn
(1901-1974) and the Italian neo-humanist sculptors Carlo Carrà
(1881-1966), Giacomo Manzù (1908-1991) and Marino Marini (1901-1980).
His earliest sculptures were figurative, mainly female nudes in bronze. In the 1960s he performed a shift towards
an art and architecture movement born in 1914 in Russia which became known particularly after the October Revolution. The movement defends an active engagement of the artwork with its surrounding space. The term was first used by Kazimir Malevich (1878-1935) in 1917 to contemptuously describe a work by Aleksander Rodchenko (1891-1956) and it did not have a positive connotation until the
Realist Manifesto from 1920.
, reaching his maturity by creating a personal style based on a sort of
A technique in the visual arts consisting of gluing materials likes photographs, bits of wood, leather, newspapers and magazine clippings or other objects to a piece of paper, canvas, or other surface. Collage became widely popular in the early twentieth century thanks to Cubist painters, and it is still in use today as yet another artistic medium.
of superimposed metal plates as if cuirasses. The most common materials in his works were iron, steel, aluminium and brass, often combined to play with textures and finishes.
A highly versatile artist, Gabino also excelled in engraving, an activity he started in the late 1950s at the studios of Antonio Lorenzo (
1922-2009) and Dimitri Papagueorguiu (1928-2016). His engraving works contain embossments and a layering of colour that connects with his unmistakable vernacular.
Together with Eduardo Chillida (1924-2002), Andreu Alfaro (1929-2012) and Martín Chirino (1925-2019), Amadeo Gabino is one of the most noteworthy Spanish contemporary sculptors. His works are to be found in the most important Spanish museums, including the Reina Sofía in Madrid, the Museum of Fine Arts in Bilbao or the Museum of Abstract Art in Cuenca.
Gabino represented Spain at the Alexandria Biennale (1954), the Venice Biennale (1956 and 1966), and the World’s Fair in New York (1964), and he has won countless awards, including the Gran Prix at the Havana Ibero-American Biennial (1953), Valencia National Industrial Design Prize (1980), the Schwäbisch Hall International Sculpture Prize (1987) and the Alfons Roig Award in Valencia (1998). Among the many exhibitions of his work held in Spain and abroad we would single out the retrospective organised in 2000 by the IVAM in Valencia.
He died just one day before the ceremony for his induction into the San Fernando Royal Academy of Fine Arts.
