Chico Montilla

Apples. Oil on linen. Colorful expressionist still-life: flowers, apples, teapot

ABOUT THE ARTIST Chico Montilla (Granada-Spain, 1961). In 1980 he traveled to Barcelona where he alternated his daily classes at the Massana School with frequent visits to the Picasso Museum, the Miró Foundation and the Güell Park. If the first two excite him, the last shocks him greatly. Faced with the work of Gaudí, the greatest of the Modernists, his spirit is ecstatic with the primitive and timeless flavors that are breathed in the sacred precinct. His paintings begin to fill with suggestive luminosity and intense color. Thanks to this new form of expression, he will materialize a series of canvases that will be in one of the "La Caixa" rooms in Barcelona. In the spring of 1983, he traveled to Madrid, where from then until 1988 he exhibited in various galleries. He returned to Granada in the summer of 1996. By chance, the director of the Reina Sofía Museum of Modern Art (Madrid) visited his studio. Sensitized by his painting, she suggested a series of large-format canvases to be exhibited in one of the rooms of the museum. In 2003, the Spanish Post and Telegraph Philatelic Service published a self-adhesive card with the reproduction of eight of his works on stamps, with the theme "Landscapes". In 2005, the Spanish Post and Telegraph Philatelic Service published a self-adhesive card with the reproduction of four of his works on stamps.