Salvador Victoria

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

Untitled

1973

silkscreen on paper (11/75)

70.9 x 49.9 cm

Inv. no. 6742

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.

In 1967 Salvador Victoria began to delve into the world of printmaking which would become, from that moment onwards and until the end of his life, a core part of his artistic production. Throughout his life he worked with many different workshops and printmakers, creating a group of works that evolve in parallel to his painting and readily evince his eagerness to experiment. In the seventies he developed a kind of composition he called superposiciones, or ‘overlayerings’: works in which he built up layers of poster board and acetate, which he used to explore volume and light. He then transferred this same concept of layering to printmaking, printing different inks one on top of another, as one can see in this striking silkscreen print from 1973. Victoria has replaced the stroke and the gesture with a form and pure colours, by means of a delicate composition based on geometric elements. The superimposition of various layers of paint, which makes the circular form annular, generates a hypnotic effect, enhancing the sensation of depth despite the flatness of the inks used.