Colour is perhaps the quintessential element in Esteban Vicente’s practice; the artist used it to evoke feelings and the beauty of life, the keys of humankind and nature. Vicente’s brushstroke was dense and precise, giving his opaque colours endless tones. But he was also a master of , a technique he returned to on a regular basis throughout his practice, both in his works on paper and on canvas.

In Spain he was part of the group of so-called “poet painters”, with his work acting almost like a visual extension of the Generation of ‘27. His painting is based on the symbol, on rhythmic elements and is clearly aligned towards the expression of beauty.

After the Spanish Civil War the artist moved to the United States where he was to remain the rest of his life. There he entered into contact with , joining the movement and becoming close friends with many of the members of the School of New York.

The personal blend of his poetic art, , a taste for and for the work of Juan Gris lead to the development of an individual style based on vibrant chromatic harmony predicated on apparently geometric structures held in check by a rigorous spatial organisation.

In the early 1950s, the artist pursued painting and along two parallel paths that would nevertheless end up converging. As he himself claimed “for me, is not an independent, bounded medium but another form of painting.”

He started to collect different types of paper for their natural fibre, texture, transparency or opaqueness, and others on which he would intervene, scratching the surface to achieve a velvety effect or dying them with the aid of as in the case of this work.

He superimposes various materials akin to geological strata, endeavouring to create a rationally construed composition, though it might not seem so at first sight.

Vicente makes the most of the qualities provided by each material, using the creases or the defects in the paper to add volume to the work. Chance has no part to play in this composition, except when it can be harnessed to serve the artist’s aesthetic purpose.