Rafael Canogar Spainish, b. 1935

Overview

 “It’s part of my landscape, the earth ploughed by the worker, who ploughs, leaving his mark on the earth.”

Canogar began his training as a young man with painter Daniel Vázquez Díaz inspired by Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso. In 1954 Canogar began to experiment with abstraction and informalism, looking at the material itself as a form of expression. Canogar applied paint directly on to the canvas then filling the scratches and furrows he made with his hands with liquid paint.

 

His canvases, increasingly monochromatic, sought to achieve a balance between form and matter, between formal and informal painting. Canogar formed the El Paso group (1957–1960) alongside Manuel Rivera and Antonio Saura among others. Influenced by Action painting the Spanish artists sought an informal aesthetic produced with a sense of passion and urgency which celebrated the freedom of the opening of Franco’s Spain to the international scene.  

 

Following a trip to the USA in the early 1960s Canogar begun a second figurative period. Using a vocabulary of narrative, socio-political mass media imagery such as police brutality and the assassination of JFK, his paintings were visually comparable with Rauschenberg’s iconic photo collage screen-prints but with an added ethical and critical dimension that Canogar describes as ‘Realism’ rather than classic American Pop. 

 

In 1967 his work evolved further; using wood, polyester and fiberglass he broke down the barriers of painting and sculpture pushing into 3 dimensions disturbing the physical space of the viewer. 

 

Retrospectives were held at the National Museum of Fine Arts, Buenos Aires, 2003, the Valencian Institute of Modern Art (IVAM), Valencia, 2013 and Reina Sofía National Museum, Madrid in 2001. More recently his work was included in the 

2014 Tate Modern exhibition ‘The World Goes Pop’. Rafael Canogar currently lives and works in Madrid.

Works
  • Rafael Canogar, Pisas umbral de la muerte (You Walk the Threshold of Death), 1963
    Rafael Canogar
    Pisas umbral de la muerte (You Walk the Threshold of Death), 1963
    Oil on canvas
    200 x 149 cm
    78 3/4 x 58 5/8 inches
  • Rafael Canogar, Estandarte, 1962
    Rafael Canogar
    Estandarte, 1962
    Oil on canvas
    150 x 200 cm
    59 x 78 3/4 inches
  • Rafael Canogar, Serie Negra no. 7, 1960
    Rafael Canogar
    Serie Negra no. 7, 1960
    Oil on canvas
    97 x 130 cm
    38 1/4 x 51 1/8 inches
  • Rafael Canogar, Jaque, 1959
    Rafael Canogar
    Jaque, 1959
    Oil on canvas
    130 x 97 cm
    51 1/8 x 38 1/4 inches
  • Rafael Canogar, Nudo, 1959
    Rafael Canogar
    Nudo, 1959
    Oil on canvas
    162 x 130 cm
    63 3/4 x 51 1/8 inches
  • Rafael Canogar, Pintura, 1959
    Rafael Canogar
    Pintura, 1959
    Oil on canvas
    60 x 73 cm
    23 5/8 x 28 3/4 inches
  • Rafael Canogar, Pintura, 1959
    Rafael Canogar
    Pintura, 1959
    Oil on canvas
    195 x 130 cm
    76 3/4 x 51 1/8 inches
  • Rafael Canogar, Pintura, 1959
    Rafael Canogar
    Pintura, 1959
    Oil on canvas
    61 x 74 x 2 cm
    24 x 29 1/8 x 3/4 inches
  • Rafael Canogar, Pintura no. 28, 1959
    Rafael Canogar
    Pintura no. 28, 1959
    Oil on canvas
    195 x 130 cm
    76 3/4 x 51 1/8 inches
  • Rafael Canogar, Pintura no. 46, 1959
    Rafael Canogar
    Pintura no. 46, 1959
    Oil on canvas
    74 x 60 cm
    29 1/8 x 23 5/8 inches
  • Rafael Canogar, Untitled, 1959
    Rafael Canogar
    Untitled, 1959
    Oil on canvas
    60 x 73 cm
    23 5/8 x 28 3/4 inches
  • Rafael Canogar, Pintura no. 18, 1958
    Rafael Canogar
    Pintura no. 18, 1958
    Oil on canvas
    120 x 80 cm
    47 1/4 x 31 1/2 inches
  • Rafael Canogar, Pintura no. 23, 1958
    Rafael Canogar
    Pintura no. 23, 1958
    Oil and acrylic on canvas
    162 x 130 cm
    63 3/4 x 51 1/8 inches
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