GERARDO RUEDA SALABERRY (Madrid, 1926 - 1996). "Untitled",... Lot 7

GERARDO RUEDA SALABERRY (Madrid, 1926 - 1996). "Untitled", 1959. Oil on canvas. Signed and dated in the lower left corner. It has slight faults. Measurements: 59 x 80 cm; 63 x 83 cm (frame). This painting belongs to a defining period in Gerardo Rueda's logbook, a few years in which he enters fully into abstraction but giving himself a logical continuity with respect to his previous stage in which he made incursions into the urban landscape: here, the architectures have been transformed into superimposed sheets, into dislocated perspectives, into material suggestions. Thus began his poetic abstraction linked to an abstract expressionism that was more lyrical than gestural. Considered one of the key artists of the second half of the 20th century, Rueda was a pioneer in the introduction of Informalism in Spain, and the creator of the Museum of Abstract Art in Cuenca together with Zóbel. He exhibited for the first time in Madrid in 1949, and since then his work has been increasingly present in the artistic circles of the capital. In 1957 he made the definitive international leap and held his first solo exhibition in Paris, at the Galerie La Roue. The exhibition was a great success, and shortly afterwards the then director of the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Jean Cassou, acquired his painting "Composition Gris ou Balbina". On the other hand, his solo exhibition in 1958 at the Madrid Athenaeum brought him a great deal of attention in Spain. He took part in the Spanish Pavilion at the 30th Venice Biennale with three paintings. During these years Rueda and Zóbel began to build up their magnificent collection of works by Spanish abstract artists of the post-war period, for the exhibition of which they formed the Museum of Spanish Abstract Art in Cuenca in 1966. Meanwhile, Rueda continued to show his personal work in important galleries, and in 1965 he began to collaborate with the Juana Mordó in Madrid, which would eventually become his gallery. The following year he also won the Serra Brothers Prize at the Salón de Mayo in Barcelona. In 1967 he acted as art purchasing advisor to the Fundación Santander Central Hispano, whose collection he helped to build up; two years later he took part in the XII Festival dei Due Mondi, at the Palazzo Collicola in Spoleto. His fame continued to grow, as did his recognition, and in 1973 he created a granite mural relief, now in the Museo de Escultura al Aire Libre del Paseo de la Castellana in Madrid. In 1980 he was one of the founding members and patron of the Fundación de los Amigos del Museo del Prado, with which he organised an important Goya exhibition three years later. In the eighties he continued to carry out important projects such as the mural painting of the Spanish Embassy in Riyadh and the remodelling of the Santa Cruz Museum in Toledo. During these years he also made numerous trips to various European capitals and also to Latin American and North American capitals, where he visited the modern art collections of their most important museums. In 1988 he was commissioned to make the stained glass windows in the central nave of Cuenca Cathedral, a task to which he devoted himself from 1989 to 1992. The eighties ended with an anthological exhibition of his work, organised by Caja Madrid. He subsequently exhibited twice at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, and the IVAM devoted nine exhibitions and catalogues to his work between 1996 and 2008. In 1995 he was appointed member of the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando. Gerardo Rueda is currently represented at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, the British Museum in London, the Fine Arts Museum in San Francisco, the Museum of Modern Art in Paris, the Rufino Tamayo Contemporary Art Museum in Mexico, Caracas and Barcelona, etc.