Manuel Millares

(Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, 1926 – Madrid, 1972)

Author's artworks

20th Century Spanish

Born into a cultivated family with artistic and cultural interests, Millares developed a deep connection with art from a very early age. Self-taught as an artist, he progressed thanks to his tireless reading and visits to the Museo Canario in Las Palmas, where he got in touch with the origins of the culture and civilisation of his native Canary Islands.

His first paintings date back to the 1940s. This first period, spanning from his early steps to 1955, was defined by the profound influence of the Surrealist circle active in the Canaries at the time, as well as by the archaeology of the aboriginal past of Gran Canaria. In 1950 he was an active founding member of the group
(LADAC), which championed a harmonic coexistence of different art forms and a defence of Canarian roots through the incorporation of innovative exhibition and art formats. In 1953 and 1954, he created his Walls, in which he began to experiment with new materials, particularly burlap, initiating a second period that started in 1955 and lasted until his death in 1972. That same year Millares moved to Madrid, where he further explored the use of burlap, which would end up as his signature material.

Together with other artists, in 1957 he founded the
, a beacon for the avant-garde movements in Spain at the time, which had been bereft of champions since the end of Spain’s Civil War. That year, he also took part at the Sao Paulo Biennial, where he presented his most recent work. One year later his pieces were included at the Venice Biennale. The event earned him widespread international recognition and throughout the following decade his works were seen in gallery exhibitions in France, Germany and the USA.

Regarding his work, in the 1960s Miralles’ palette was restricted to browns, blacks, especially in the sixties, as well as reds and whites, which in mid-decade took over from the black tones in works such as Anthropofaunas or Neanderthalios. The works from this period convey an undertone of social and moral denunciation, lending special importance to the human figure. In 1969 he ventured on a journey through the Sahara Desert, an experience that marked the final period of his trajectory and inspired the creation of a suite of drawings in which he tried to evoke the luminosity of the desert, recreating its wild life with great gestural expressiveness.

The artists’ career was cut short dramatically by his death at the early age of forty-six, just as he was reaching the peak of his career and his practice was turning towards figuration.

His works may be found in the collections of major museums such as The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York; The Tate Modern, London; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (Madrid) and Museo de Arte Abstracto (Cuenca).