Bonifacio Alfonso

Bonifacio Alfonso (Spain, 1933–2011). Born in San Sebastián as Bonifacio Alfonso Gómez Fernández, he was a painter and printmaker. He worked with mixed media and developed a body of work based on the expressive use of material, texture, color, and line.

His informalist style fell somewhere between Surrealism and Abstract Expressionism. Although he came from the San Sebastián art scene, his work was more closely associated with the abstract school of Cuenca than with the Basque school. He was influenced by Roberto Matta, Willem de Kooning, Pierre Alechinsky, and the Cobra group.

He participated in the 1978 Venice Biennale, and the Reina Sofía National Art Museum presented a retrospective of his work in 1992. He received the National Printmaking Award in 1993 and the Community of Madrid Arts Award in 2005. His work is included in the collections of the Reina Sofía Museum, the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum, the Patio Herreriano Museum, the San Telmo Museum, the Antonio Pérez Foundation, the Juan March Foundation, the “la Caixa” Foundation’s Testimonio Collection, Kutxa Fundazioa, and the BBVA Collection.