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Untitled, 1927

FICHA TÉCNICA
Untitled, 1927
Oil on canvas, 64 x 91 cm.

Still lifes represented the great topic of Modernism for Joaquín Peinado. Although prior to the date of this painting he had stood out for some of his compositions with figures,and mixtures of Neo-classicism (The Sailors and above all,Mother and Daughter, both of 1924) and new-order Realism (The Child of Palma, circa 1923), these seemed more like exercises in virtuosity than the result of conviction.As mentioned, this place of privilege is occupied by the genre of still life. An entire career can be traced with subtle gradations from the various forms of Post-cubism to a lyrical figurativism, with even some surrealist references slipping in. In fact, in barely four years, from 1925 to1929, Peinado continually experimented until finding what would be his mature style, the most recognisable, that personal mixture of geometrical schemes and simplified, yet always identifiable shapes, not going as far as abstract.

Today it is not difficult to understand why in 1925 (and surely at the behest of Manuel Ángeles Ortiz), when the newly-formed Society of Iberian Artists, led by Manuel Abril, Gabriel García Maroto and Guillermo de Torre, asks Peinado for one of his paintings for their first exhibit, the Malaga artist selects a still life.The piece repeats a classic Picasso-like outline, of a person dining in front of a window open to the scenery beyond it.However, this piece is much more rigid at its core and mixes practices of orthodox Cubism with purist contours and even with two shaded fruits (adding volume), based on “Valori Plastici”.Naturally, the critics of the day described this painting as Picasso-esque, an attribute that would often become a stigma for his work.In the acclaimed book of 1960 by Mercedes Guillén, Conversaciones con los artistas españoles de la Escuela de París, Peinado explains that at that time he knew very clearly who the masters of modern painting were, as well as this scene in Paris:

“When I arrived in Paris I understood that Cubism had been replaced by a Neo-cubism that allowed for one to paint more freely, with problems of another order and a broader tendency that could be summed up as simply, ‘paint well’.Cubism, with its technique, was the great lesson for all of us.The analytical process in search of styles of expression to represent objects reduced to their artistic structure –this had to interest us. In order to understand Cubism one had to have a deep sense of Cézanne, and of course Picasso, Braque and Juan Gris, who created it.”

A few months after the 1925 exhibit, in the 1926 still life (held today at the Valle Ortí Gallery of Valencia) Peinado’s interests seem to slide towards more lyrical aspects.This is in harmony with much of the contemporary work of his compatriots in Paris.Nonetheless, one of the features of these still lifes persists, a background setting made up of large areas of unshaded colour.Once again, a highly Picasso-like contribution, this time from Picasso’s decorative Cubism, such as The Harlequin (1915, New York, MoMA) or Composition (Harlequin and Woman with Necklace) of 1917 (Paris, Centre Georges Pompidou).The same can be said of another still life from 1926, which we know only through its reproduction in the Malaga magazine Litoral (num.s 5-6-7).

The following year, when to his dismay, an entire generation of poets and novelists would be baptised, Peinado signs the small Still Life (Bodegón) that currently is found in a private Madrid collection.This still life maintains the characteristics described above, as does the still life in the Telefónica Collection that we now focus our study on. This Untitled (1927) has a dual nature, that of a joint and of a hodgepodge.It is a timeless connective joint that marks a milestone in the series of still lifes described above insomuch that it represents the end of experiments on derived forms of decorative Cubism and an opening up in the direction of lyrical painting. It is also a hodgepodge that blends numerous previous influences in figurative, Cubist, Post-cubist, and Purist tones, paying homage to one of the most successful surrealist practices, such as contour lines and the resulting confusion between reality and fiction. It is well known that after certain works by Picabia in the early 1920’s known as “transparencies”(a biography closely tied toSpain) this technique was practiced artist such asMoreno Villa, the binomial Dalí-Lorca, Bores, Cossío, Gabriel Celaya, Juan José Luis González Bernal, Benjamín Palencia... while not forgetting the influence of Miró and his writing in the air.

Right away, these surrealist suggestions took shape more decidedly in the illustrations that Peinado did for a book by José María Hinojosa, La flor de Californía (1928), in which transparent bodies and superimposed planes follow one another, almost cut out by scissors. This surprising painter, so active and changeable during these years, would still create surprise in 1928 with another still life (Alonso Weber Collection, Madrid) in which, although the obsessive monochromatic colour planes remain, figurative registers seem to rise from their ashes.There is a very notable material component, that had already been presented in the Telefónica still life, one that gives the painting surface a rough texture like that of a wall.This had been done successfully also by Massimo Campigli and Mario Sironi.

At the end of this intense journey, reduced almost to two biennials, Peinado is reintroduced to the Madrid public. This takes place at the heart of the Exhibit of Spanish Painters and Sculptors Living in Paris at the botanical garden in Madrid where the critics Manuel Abril and Corpus Barga both deliver lectures in defence of the art there on exhibit: Alberto Sánchez, Manuel Ángeles Ortiz, Francisco Bores, Pancho Cossío, Dalí, Fenosa, Gargallo, González de la Serna, Gris, Manolo Hugué, Miró, Alfonso de Olivares, Palencia, Gabriela Pastor, Peinado, Pruna, Ucelay, and Hernando Viñes. In an article appearing in Revista de Occidente summing up Corpus Barga’s lecture, one could clearly see the passing of Neo-cubism and that modern Spanish painting was mostly passing into the terrain of lyrical figurativism:

“This exhibit give a fairly clear idea about the new Spanish painting done in Paris after Cubism. . . . Just like the paintings in museums, the same has happened with the flood of painting and Cubism . . . Cubism has now become museum painting. It has mechanically become universal as a product of painting. . . . It has passed from exhibits to shop windows.It has been a pictorial movement in all its consequences. . . . It seems to me that this painting wants deeply to become painting again, salvaging itself from all cushyand decorative risks, and that it can’t rely on traditional elements; it can only rely on its own elements and must invent elements.This painting is elemental . . . . Drawing in this type of painting seems to want to arise out of the painting itself. . . . None of the pieces exhibited here resemble each other.As you can see, they are from disparate painters.Each of these painters, in the long term could give rise to a different School. . . .” I. G. G.

SIGNED
Dated and dedicated on the lower right, “To my companion and friend, with much gratitude. Paris 1927”

ORIGIN
Theo Gallery, Madrid / Leandro Navarro Gallery, Madrid.

EXHIBITIONS
Joaquín Peinado desde 1918 hasta 1945, 2001, Granada, Huerta de San Vicente, Museum-Home of Federico García Lorca / Joaquín Peinado, 2001, Ronda,Peinado Museum (Fundación Unicaja).

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Pérez Segura, Javier, Joaquín Peinado desde 1918 hasta 1945, 2001, Granada, Huerta de San Vicente, Museum-Home of Federico García Lorca, p. 57 / Francés Fernando, Joaquín Peinado, 2001, Ronda, Peinado Museum, (Fundación Unicaja), p. 11.