Rafael Alberti

Letter N - Original Lithograph by Rafael Alberti

1972

Rafael Alberti was one of the leading exponents of the Generation of 1927, and one of Spain’s greatest 20th-century lyrical poets. After starting out as a painter in 1925, he won the Premio Nacional de Literatura for his collected poems, Marinero en tierra (Sailor on Land). Alberti started painting in 1917, and began writing poetry three years later. He was a close friend of artists such as Salvador Dalí and Pablo Picasso, and poet Federico Garcia Lorca, and in the late 1920s published his dark, lyrical masterpiece Sobre los angeles (Concerning the Angels). 

Politics became increasingly important in Alberti’s life, forcing him into exile after Francisco Franco’s victory in the Spanish Civil War. In 1963, he moved to Rome, together with his lifelong companion, Maria Teresa Léon, and it was in Italy that — influenced by the avant-garde movements of the 20th century — he became active as a painter and graphic artist while continuing to write poetry. After settling in a house with a studio in Anticoli Corrado, Alberti devoted himself to both forms of art, moving between poems devoted to nature and culture, and existential reflections suspended between the world of dreams and reality.