José Guerrero

José Guerrero (Granada, 1914 - Barcelona, 1994) was a Spanish painter and printmaker, recognized for his work within the abstract expressionist movement. He studied at the School of Arts and Crafts in Granada and later at the Academy of San Fernando in Madrid. He was one of the mentors in the creation of the Museum of Abstract Art in Cuenca. In 1959, he was named a Chevalier of Arts and Letters by the French government, in 1984 he received the Gold Medal of Fine Arts, and in 1989 he was decorated by the Rodríguez Acosta Foundation. Throughout his career, Guerrero traveled to several European cities to learn about the avant-garde artistic movements of the moment, especially those developing in Paris. However, it was in New York where his work evolved from figuration to abstraction, incorporating the action painting trend. With Guerrero, Spanish art established strong connections with the international art scene, particularly with American Abstract Expressionism. His trip to New York in 1950 was a search for a setting where modern art flourished. Although his painting had no thematic connections or dramatic pretensions in relation to Franco's regime, Spain and Granada appeared as themes in his work in the years prior to his return, as evidenced in works such as "Andalucía aparece" (Andalucía visitación) (1964). His formal references to Granadan landscapes and his tense brushwork marked his work until 1970, visible in works such as "Brecha de Víznar" (1966), "Tanto monta, monta tanto" (Tanto monta, monta tanto) (1966c), and "Levante" (Levante) (1969). From 1970 onward, Guerrero began a new phase in his work, notable for the series "Fosforescencias" (Phosphorescences), followed by a group of works with the arch as a motif. Subsequently, compositional order, mastery of color, and his conception of the painting as mural architecture became the foundations of his work, as seen in "Canciones de color" (Canciones de color) (1990). In the 1970s, Guerrero became a reference for a new generation of Spanish painters interested in recovering their passion for painting and experimenting with color fields and abstraction with content.