Manuel Viola

Manuel Viola

José Viola Gamón (born May 18, 1916 in Saragossa , † March 8, 1987 in San Lorenzo de El Escorial ( Madrid )) also called Manuel Viola , was a Spanish abstract painter who belonged to the group " El Paso ".

His painting, which was mainly created in Aragon , is characterized by its informal and coloristic treatment and can be seen in the context of the Spanish avant-garde of the 1950s.

life and work

Viola began studying at the Faculty of Philosophy in Barcelona before the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939). Before that, he had already trained himself self-taught . His first drawings date from this period. He was interested in art and literature and was a founding member of the surrealist magazine Art . He also belonged to the Amigos de las Artes Nuevas (ADLAN) group in Barcelona .

During the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) Viola joined the Labor Party of Marxist Unity ( POUM ). After the war he left for France as a political refugee . There he fought against the Axis powers and wrote surrealist poems for the magazine La main à plume . In Paris , Viola took part as a painter in the exhibitions of the “Paris Spanish School”. In 1949 he went back to Spain , but never lost contact with the Spanish artists in Paris.

From 1958 onwards one can speak of a developed personal style at Viola, which was characterized in particular by an expressive gestural expressionism . At the same time he joined the El Paso group , which included the painter Antonio Saura and the sculptor Pablo Serrano , both also from Aragon.

literature

• Xavier Barral i Altet (ed.): The history of Spanish art ("Historia del arte de España"). Könemann, Cologne 1997, ISBN 3-89508-700-9 .

Web links

• Biography (Spanish page)
• Viola, Manuel. In: Gran Enciclopedia Aragonesa (Spanish)
• Viola in the Spanish National Library
• Viola. Critical analysis