JOAQUÍN MICHAVILA ASENSI (Alcora, Castellón, 1926... Lot n° 17

JOAQUÍN MICHAVILA ASENSI (Alcora, Castellón, 1926 - Albalat de Taronchers, Valencia, 2016). Untitled. Mixed media on paper. Signed in the lower right corner. Size: 29.5 x 21.5 cm; 44 x 35 cm (frame). One of the main representatives of Valencian abstraction, Joaquín Michavila was trained at the Escuela Superior de Bellas Artes de San Carlos de Valencia, of whose academy he was a member since 1975 and president between 2003 and 2007. Professor of Fine Arts, he was awarded the Distinction for Cultural Merit of the Generalitat Valenciana (2001) and the Plastic Arts Award of the Generalitat Valenciana (2007). Michavila moved to Valencia in 1932, where he lived until 1966. An outstanding participant of the Valencian avant-garde, Michavila was part, since its foundation, of the groups Los Siete, Parpalló and Artes del Arte. He began his career in 1952, and for a few years he searched for his own language, and from 1960 he developed a language framed within constructivism, which evolved progressively in an increasingly geometric sense. A decade later he will focus on evoking the landscapes of his youth through abstraction, and around 1990 he begins to approach tenebrism, with works marked by the contrast of light and shadow. At the beginning of the 21st century, Michavila will begin a new stage with a production of acrylics generically titled "Counterpoint", a musical term from which sprout plastic interpretations of master composers of the avant-garde such as Schönberg, Luis de Pablo or Paco Llàcer. This last series speaks of a certain existential drama derived from the previous pictorial tenebrism, with black backgrounds on which sound becomes pure form, sound vibration as well as light, playing to evoke synesthesia. Throughout his career, Michavila held exhibitions throughout Spain, as well as in Rome, Florence, Basel, Denver, São Paulo, New York and Vienna. He was distinguished with numerous awards, including the Alfonso Roig Award from the Diputación de Valencia in 1996 and the Gold Medal of the City of Valencia in 1997, as well as being named Alcorí Distinguit in 1998. Also, in February 2016 the University of Valencia dedicated a monographic exhibition to him as a tribute, bringing together a selection of thirty representative works from throughout his career.