Salvador Victoria

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

Composición

1971-1972

oil on plywood

130 x 97 cm

Inv. no. P00935

BBVA Collection Spain



Salvador Victoria’s work reflects the demands of a highly refined artist who carefully chooses his materials and support, preparing them methodically.

After carrying out his earlier figurative works with geometric echoes, in 1956 the artist travelled to Paris where he entered into contact with the happening movements of the time. His practice then veered towards Art Informel, with a heightened taste for matter and colour.

With Egon Nicolaus (1928-1988) he founded the Tempo group (1963) with which he exhibited in several European countries.

After returning to Madrid in 1965 his practice began to move away from Art Informel, as he started to introduce collages of canvas cut with a curvilinear line, and to replace tempera, used in his so called Relieves Poéticos [Poetic Reliefs] from the early 60's, with oil paint. Then, little by little he abandoned
and used only oil and board to create a personal volumetric cosmos of spheres, cones and pyramids.

Since the sixties, his compositions became decidedly more forthright, and would remain so until the end of his life’s work. In addition, from this decade onwards, a powerful figure would appear almost systematically in all his representations, namely the circle. At times it was created by layering lines in space and other times it emerged like a sun on the horizon. Colour was also to play an equally important role, as would the line, a succession of curves that speak to the spatiality emanating from emptiness. The artist himself defined his painting as “within
, attracted towards matter and signs (…) grounded in colour (…), a more open and profound expressive clarity”.

The relationship established between the forms brings to mind a landscape, albeit indirectly, with highly studied movement and rhythm in search of balance and understanding between the elements.

In this oil painting, the circular element contains a play of textures, built by means of adding various layers of card over which the artist superimposes a canvas, subtly integrating everything on the wood support, generating movement and conferring a sense of vividness to the painting.