ESTEBAN VICENTE
Permanent Collection
July 22 – September 21, 2003
On the occasion of the Centennial of the birth of Esteban Vicente, the Museo is presenting the complete Permanent Collection of the Museo from 22 July to 21 September.
Even though temporary exhibits at the Museo have also included various aspects of Esteban Vicente’s work, the entire Collection has not been shown for over three and a half years. The current showing affords the visitor an opportunity to view the different phases of the painter’s production in its entirety in order to understand his artistic evolution more fully.
In addition to the 150 works that make up the Permanent Collection, it is possible to see, for the first time, the painting, Sin Título (Untitled), 1956, perhaps one of the finest of that period and recently incorporated into the collection. It is a splendid work done in oil and a good example of the period in which Esteban Vicente’s painting concentrates on compositions centered on a cluster of geometric shapes, detaining and ordering the movement that predominated in his paintings at the beginning of the decade. Texture also plays an important part, emphasizing the density of the material and making the brushstroke visible.
In addition to this painting, two other works were incorporated in March: Before the Harvest (Antes de la cosecha), 1999, and Sin Título (Untitled), 2000, the last work done by the painter. Both reflect his evolution, without any diminution in quality, until the end of his life, in a process of constant destillation of his long artistic experience.
After having shown during this Centenary year the esthetic ideology of Esteban Vicente in the exhibition, Zurbaarán, Juan Gris, Esteban Vicente. A Spanish Tradition of Modernity, and having delved into his initial artistic formative period before he went to America in Entire Light. Esteban Vicente and His Contemporaries, 1918-1936, we felt it was necessary to look back over his work in its entirety, in the Collection containing works from 1925-2000. In other words, the show ranges from his period as a figurative painter in the wake of Post-Cubism and Post-Impressionism in the decades from the 1920s and 1930s, to his work as an abstract painter and member of the New York School. from its very beginnings.
The last, and perhaps the most unusual exhibition included in the Centenary, deals precisely with this movement, and will be shown throughout the fall. It is entitled American Abstracct Expressionism in Spanish Collections (El Expresionismo Abstracto Americano en las Colecciones Españolas). The showing contains works from its most significant artists present in Spanish collections which, for the most part, have never before seen in public.