Washington Barcala, a Retrospective

Washington Barcala, a Retrospective: Working in conjunction with the César Manrique Foundation, and with the support of Telefónica, Fundación Telefónica has brought together 64 pieces of the Uruguayan artist Washington Barcala, from his figurative, abstract and personal periods, including "Boxes".

The exhibit is a collection of his work from the last half of the century, personal, coherent and intense. It shows us a Uruguayan artist escaping from stridency and taking shelter in a stripped, intimate and almost hermetic language, which also overflows with sensitivity.

The pieces have been provided by the Reina Sofía National Art Center of Madrid, the National Museum of Visual Art of Montevideo and the Herreriano Patio-Museum of Contemporary Spanish Art of Valladolid.

The collection is organized by María Martín.

FIGURATIVE, ABSTRACT AND "THE BOXES"

His work is organized around three large periods. The first, figurative painting (from 1946 to 1950), followed by eight years of no visual art work; Second, abstract painting, lyrical with an informalist slant (from 1961 to 1964), exemplified by "Chatarras"; And the third, from 1967 on, "Boxes", which could be considered the most productive period of his career.

Born the only child of a middle class family (paternal ancestors were from Spain, maternal ones, from Italy), Washington Barcala was raised combining his games and studies with the chores of the cardboard box factory that belonged to his parents. There he worked with the raw materials which, many years later, he would use in his artwork. He became familiar with cardboard, sewing machines, boxes, all of these words essential for understanding his creative world as a mature artist. Given that Barcala’s language is not only one of a painter, rather, he expands into the neighborhoods of other disciplines, we could refer to him as a painter of boundaries or borders.

In the mid-1960’s, after having begun in the art world as a figurative and abstract painter, he began to explore his most personal creative language. In Spain, he found the stimulation conducive to his creative adventure, now contained in his boxes: pictorial
objects built of wood, fabrics, strings, cardboard, sticks, stitching, all proposing silent and subtle emotional landscapes.

Exhibition