Salvador Victoria

(Rubielos de Mora, Teruel, 1928- Alcalá de Henares, Madrid, 1994)

Untitled

1974

silkscreen on paper (15/100)

58 x 39 cm

Inv. no. 30550

BBVA Collection Spain



Salvador Victoria is a key figure in the renewal of the visual arts in Spain in the twentieth century. His painting evolved from an informalist language in the fifties—coinciding with his time in Paris and his discovery of
and
—towards
in pure colours and forms, with the circle as the main motif in his compositions. These features would visually and conceptually mark his work in the seventies. After a period of tireless experimentation, in the eighties he recovered the free-flowing, vibrant brushwork of his early practice. Without ever abandoning the circle, his compositions from this period are sustained on a more leisurely rhythm than the works from his period in Paris and would be a point of inflection in his long process of research into the form, colour and matter, the elements which Victoria used to transcend the boundaries of the purely visual.

From 1967 onwards Victoria combines his painting practice with an equally interesting production of prints. Throughout his lifetime he collaborated with various workshops and printmakers who helped him to materialize his manifold experiments in this field. In the decade of the seventies the artist was especially prolific in printmaking, and one can readily observe an evolution akin to his painting. During the early-seventies he created a series of silkscreen prints with layers of inks which are particularly striking for their intense, bright colouring. That said, his palette of colours evolved with the passing of time, in quest of greater simplification and refinement: he began to lean towards more neutral colours and a range of earthy tones that bring to mind a tellurian world. In terms of forms, he still tended towards geometric figures, with a predilection for the circle, as exemplified by this composition, a piece created by Victoria and printed at the Ángel López workshop. The play of concentric forms accentuates the movement, recalling works like Mult-Fer II, also in the BBVA Collection. With this play of perfect forms that seem to float in space, Victoria invites the spectator to enter his metaphysical world.