EDUARDO NARANJO (Monesterio, Badajoz, 1944). Lot n° 104

EDUARDO NARANJO (Monesterio, Badajoz, 1944). "Marta and the sea", 2004. Oil on board. Provenance: Acquired from the artist in 2006. Work reproduced in the artist's catalog, page 207. Signed in the lower left corner. Titled, dated and signed on the back. Size: 45 x 57 cm; 67 x 78,5 cm (frame). In a second version of the work, the artist depicts his wife, Marta, with an outstanding hyperrealistic treatment. He places her in a privileged foreground, seated and with her back turned, intertwining her legs and arms while she carefully observes the sea in front of her. A first visual contact with Eduardo Naranjo's creation delights us both for its realism and for the quality with which he captures even the smallest detail, in this way, precision and great mastery of execution merge in his work. Eduardo Naranjo is an outstanding contemporary Spanish painter recognized as one of the great exponents of magical dream realism. Eduardo Naranjo began his artistic training in 1957 with his teacher Eduardo Acosta, and that same year he entered the School of Arts and Crafts. In 1960 he continued his studies at the Escuela de Bellas Artes de Santa Isabel de Hungría in Seville, and a year later he moved to the Escuela de Bellas Artes San Fernando in Madrid, where he finished his studies. After his academic stage, Naranjo decided to move to Paris, where he became deeply acquainted with the work of Picasso and artists such as Matisse. His work is defined by the technical exploration of painting, although he has also worked with sculpture and in the field of scenography, and between 1986 and 1991 he made a series of engravings for the book "Poet in New York" by Federico García Lorca. Eduardo Naranjo's artistic career includes important prizes and awards, such as the Luis de Morales de Badajoz prize (1974), the Medal of Extremadura (1991), the María de Salamanca National Engraving Prize of the Museum of Contemporary Spanish Engraving (1994) and the Cross of Military Merit for his contribution to the Arts and the Army (1995). Throughout his career he has held solo exhibitions all over the world, and today he is one of the most sought-after living Spanish painters. In fact his fame is international, being admired in countries as far away as China, where he has exhibited numerous times and has been invited to give master classes at universities in the country. Today his work is divided between private collections of international character and numerous public museums, among which stand out; the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia in Madrid and the Nagasaki Museum in Japan, as well as in countless private collections, among them the Masaveu Collection in Oviedo.