Albert Rafols Casamada

Gris-Velázquez

1998

Albert Ràfols-Casamada was born in 1923 in Barcelona. There he began pursuing a career in architecture, which left convinced that he must devote himself exclusively to art. Thanks to a scholarship, he traveled to France in 1950, where he received a big creative boost and where he learned about post-Cubist figurative painting, creating, based on this style, his early works. Painters such as Picasso, Braque and Matisse mark their influence in the work of Ràfols-Casamada and begins to create his first abstract works. In 1955 he decided to return to Barcelona. Already immersed in pure abstraction and firmly settled in Barcelona, Ràfols-Casamada created works like "Cantera" (1958), characterized by the presence of orthogonal forms and structural composition on the canvas created from a soft color yet very bright. Around this time he makes clear the great influence of painters like Rothko and Mondrian. Later in the decade of the '60s, he reaches an oversimplification, both in form and color, coming to rely only on white to create her pieces. Being instructed in American trends, adjusts the pop art and collage to his repertoire, resulting in works such as "La Emoción y la Razón" (1965). Lover of the pedagogy of art, he created in 1964, the first Spanish school of art, Elisava, running it until 1967, year in which he left this school to create another, Eina, secular and focused on the most contemporary trends of the time. In the '70s, his works are characterized by the use of horizontal and vertical planes that maximize the chromatic contrasts, whose tones are bright and sensitive. Works such as "Invernadero" (1982) are the faithful representation of this trend. Albert Ràfols-Casamada has earned throughout his career a great appreciation of his work and his contribution to Spanish art, the proof are the awards given by the Spanish Ministry of Culture (National Plastic Arts Prize in 1980), the Legion Honor of the French Government (1991) or the Visual Arts Award of Catalonia (2003). Ràfols-Casamada died in 2009 in his native Barcelona.