Lucio Muñoz is one of the few artists of his generation who lent particular attention to printing techniques. In fact, he sometimes used them as models for his paintings, while other times he transferred to paper an idea already rendered on canvas or board. In either case, his experimentation with printmaking was a kind of transcendental need, as the artist admitted to Miguel Logroño: “personally I find that printmaking cleanses me and rewards me. Over the last few years, my evolution in painting has been greatly indebted to printmaking (…)”.

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.In the seventies, he experimented on paper with sketches and notes which he then transferred to painting. This coincided with a period of change in which, as the artist explained to María José Salazar in 2001, “the inner landscape gave way to a more problematic, debatable and baroque phase. Now the erstwhile conceptual pretention is joined by a more concrete one, to act with similar methods, but on invented objects (…)”.

Urania 1, and Urania 2, also in the BBVA Collection, come from the Collection of National Plastic Arts Prizes 1980-1985. Published by Décaro, this collection comprised six portfolios each containing two prints by one of the artists awarded in those six years. Besides Lucio Muñoz, these were Luis Gordillo (1934), Manolo Valdés (1942) and Eduardo Arroyo (1937) among others.