The inward looking approach and the liveliness exuded by his works earned Lucio Muñoz an enviable reputation as an artist both in Spain and internationally.

Although in his early phase his profound admiration for the Swiss master Paul Klee (1879-1940) drew him towards , after enrolling at the San Fernando School of Fine Arts in Madrid he came into contact with the major exponents of the Madrid school of realism, most notably Antonio López (1936), Carmen Laffón (1934), Julio López Hernández (1930) and Amalia Avia (1930-2011), whom Muñoz married in 1960. Apart from a close friendship, he shared with all of them a liking for everyday scenes as a means of commenting on the passing of time.

When he moved to Paris with a scholarship from the French government he was able to further his training and get in touch with the

 art autre 

and art informel are terms coined by the French art critic Michael Tapié to describe the non-

 Geometric Abstraction 

A term introduced in the 1920s to name a kind of abstract art based on scientific and mathematical principles. The main goal was to eliminate all subjectivity in favour of art based on the essence of geometric forms. Its main champions were Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944), Kazimir Malevich (1879-1935) and Piet Mondrian (1872-1944).

that emerged in France in the 1950s, running parallel to US

 Abstract Expressionism 

This contemporary painting movement emerged within the field of abstraction in the 1940s in the United States, from where it spread worldwide. Rooted in similar premises and postulates as Surrealism, the Abstract Expressionist artists regarded the act of painting as a spontaneous and unconscious activity, a dynamic bodily action divested of any kind of prior planning. The works belonging to this movement are defined by the use of pure, vibrant primary colours that convey a profound sense of freedom. The movement’s main pioneers were, among others, Arshile Gorky (1904-1948) and Hans Hoffman (1880-1966). Leading Spanish exponents of the movement are Esteban Vicente (1903-2001) and José Guerrero (1914-1991), who lived for some time in New York City, where they were in first-hand contact with the many artistic innovations taking place there around that time.

. It was predicated on the spontaneous gesture, the use of matter, automatism and the lack of preconceived ideas.

 movement which he quickly embraced and then introduced in Spain precisely at the moment when the El Paso group was being created. In the 1950s, while still in Paris, he introduced wood as a vehicle for his expression, working it in very different forms and textures.

This on paper, together with the other six in the BBVA Collection, is part of a series of originals dated in 1969-70 that the artist probably made as preparatory models for a portfolio of silkscreen prints in homage to his friend and master, the painter and poet Eduardo Chicharro (1905-1964), one of the major exponents of the movement known as

 Postismo 

an aesthetic movement whose name is derived from a contraction of Postsurrealismo. It was founded in 1945 in Madrid by Eduardo Chicharro, Carlos Edmundo de Ory and Silvano Sernesí. Initially it wanted to be understood as “the ism that comes after the isms”, in other words, a kind of synthesis of all the preceding literary avant-gardes.

.

In this interesting work the artist transcribes the last lines of Chicharro, or Chebé as he was known to his closest friends, from the Letter to Lucio and Amalia he dedicated to them when he was still alive. Muñoz enters into a dialogue with his dead friend: “Eduardo, can you hear me…? It is the numb soul of the birds that are dying on us from the cold.” These are some of the lines included in that letter:

                      
  (…) Can’t you hear, Count Lucio?
                        Or can’t you perceive, diaphanous Amalia
                        The hollow voice of the kettledrums
                        The double purring of cornamuses and tame cats?
                        Don’t you both sense bells, lutes?
                        Or their inaudible pealing?
                        They are the faltering shrapnel of faded lives.
                        The nonsense of Justice
                        The Hosanna seagulls sing to the sun
                        It is the numb soul of the birds
                        That are dying on us from the cold (…)

Once again, he uses

 frottage 

an art technique based on the reproduction of the texture of objects, achieved by rubbing a pencil on a sheet placed on top of the object whose texture one wishes to obtain.

 to simulate motifs that could be the birds the poet is talking about, which seem to fly free over a triangular structure reminiscent of a bandstand or a gazebo.