Josep Guinovart Biography

Barcelona, 1927 - 2007

Painter and engraver recognized internationally, Guinovart is one of the most personal voices of the Spanish panorama. Bound in a first moment to the group Dau to the Set, and later one of the founders of the group Tahull -together with Jaume Muxart, Antoni Tàpies and Joan Josep Tharrats-, during the first years of his activity carries out mural paintings, theater decorations, posters and illustrations.

Formed in the Technical School of the Llotja, a grant of the French Institute allows him in 1952 to travel to Paris, where he knows original work of Matisse and Cézanne, between others, and movements as the cubism.

From a first figurative stage, the work of Guinovart evolves with a subject of social character and with trend of the muralism. The abstract currents and the informalism open new perspectives in the esthetics of his painting. In 1957, using other resources as the incorporation of objects and the manipulation free from the matter, Guinovart initiates a series of next experiences to the assemblage or collage, with drums, burned woods, elements of being undone, boxes, coatings, etc. Between his plastic expression and his vital environment, constituted by the nature, the field and the earth, an alive dialogue, expressed through symbols that are part of a subjective art of poetry, is generated.

Guinovart has been awarded with the National Prize of Plastic Arts for the Spanish government in 1982 and for the Department of Culture of the Generalitat of Catalonia in 1990.

This is a PUBLIC selection of the MUSEUMS and COLLECTIONS in those that his work can be found:

- Casa de las Américas, La Habana.
- Fine Arts Museum of Long Island. Nueva York.
- Colección del Museo de Arte Contemporáneo, Barcelona.
- Museo de Arte Moderno, México DF.
- Museo de Escultura al Aire Libre, Santa Cruz de Tenerife.
- Museo de Navarra, Tafalla.
- Museo Provincial de Vitoria.
- Museo de la Solidaridad Salvador Allende, Santiago de Chile.
- Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Alejandría.
- Museo de Arte Moderno, Barcelona.
- Museo Balaguer, Vilanova i la Geltrú, Barcelona.
- Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao.
- Museo Guggenheim, Nueva York.
- Museo de Lissone, Milan.
- Museo de Sant Pol de Mar, Barcelona
- Museo de Marcay, Venezuela.
- Museo de Arte Contemporáneo, Caracas.
- Museo Carrillo Gil, México.
- Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid.
- Museo de San Telmo, San Sebastián.
- Museo de Bocchum, Alemania.
- Colección Fundación "La Caixa", Barcelona.
- Colección Patriomio Nacional, Madrid.
- Colección Fundación Juan March, Madrid.
- Coelcción Fons de la Generalitat de Catalunya, Barcelona.
- Colección The Chase Manhattan Bank, Nueva York.
- Ayuntamiento de Barcelona.
- Colección del Museo de Arte Contemporáneo, Madrid.
- Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Cáceres.
- Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Villafamés, Castellón de la Plana.
- Museo Eusebio Sempere, Alicante.