More than a century of Hernando Viñes painting
La Fundación Telefónica will present the first broad retrospective of the painter Hernando Viñes in Spain since his death. The collection is made up of more than 60 paintings, representing almost six decades of creative work by this Spanish artist, one of the most valued members of the so-called Paris School.

The exhibit, organized by Alain Gobin, is made up of more than 60 of the artist’s paintings from all his various periods.
Viñes’ art comprises all the major themes in painting and is inscribed in the continuum of the great founding currents in modern art.

A BRIDGE BETWEEN THE MOST INCOMPATIBLE TENDENCIES Having gone into surrealism, Viñes formed part of a generation that established bridges, linking together the most incompatible tendencies. But the Dalí surrealism (the extreme tendency) only held back Viñes’ impulse, that which allowed him to go into pictorial surrealism. Together with Bores, Viñes was the most representative of this tendency. Pictorial surrealism led Viñes to do painting that could live off its own substance, just like music. Viñes approached fauvism as one of its later representatives, from the end of the war until ’65. However, he was not attracted by the pure colors, but by playing with mixed colors. This is particularly reflected in his large, radiant landscapes. Influenced by Vlamink, Derain, Matisse and above all, Braque, Viñes inherited a resplendent type of painting, made up of pure colors. Later, Signac and others would expand this into pointillism. Viñes did not reject the impressionism developed and defended by Bonnard. It was Bonnard’s universe connected to the intimacy of Vuillard’s work that would be a constant preoccupation of Viñes from 1930 until 1960. Throughout his life he maintained a connection with Cezanne, based not on method and the nature of the quest, but rather, more on the technique of painting. Viñes’ painting is not at all Cezannian in its expression, but it is in its creative process. His link with Bonnard was one that showed him how to paint and the nature of painting. With this artist he found an answer to the questions of color and value, of tone and rhythm. Lastly, Picasso was the friend who exerted a special influence upon him throughout his life. WHAT DOES HIS ART OFFER US? Throughout the course of his lengthy 70 year career as a painter Viñes worked with the major themes in painting: persons in situations, the women and small card players of his early period, the portrait with its psychological component, still life, large interior compositions and windows, nudes and landscapes. In addition, he worked with illustration, drawing, watercolors and oils. As the organizer of the collection points out, in its material aspect Viñes’ art is one of composition. His painting is one of great reflection: it calls upon both one’s intelligence and sensibility. Color is a major component in Viñes’ art. It concentrates the painter’s energy upon the reasoned and intentional structure of his painting, which bit by bit gives way to the poetic improvisation. The play of colors, by overlapping or back to back brush strokes organizes the painting’s chromatism. Viñes’ pictorial chromatism possesses an essential musicality. Space, air and light are the great components in Viñes’ landscape art. He was for a long time greatly involved in the problem of transparency, transparencies of lights, colors and atmospheres. The organization of space is the result of a concordance between the structures of the painting and the play of light upon these structures. These movements allow for air to flow through the canvas. His is an art in balance, one in which work and poetry both play a part, in which talent and technical mastery cannot in themselves explain the essences of his works. For this reason we must add into the equation Viñes’ intellectual integrity. In effect, this was the product of his artistic honesty, and of a life uniquely lived with the humility of an artisan. These are the attributes most aptly associated with his work. BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES ON HERNANDO VIÑES Born in Paris on May 20, 1904. His father was an engineer of Catalan origin; His mother was daughter of Marco Aurelio Soto – the former president of the Republic of Honduras- and a native Guatemalan woman of indigenous origin. In 1916 he moves to Madrid with his family where he resides until 1919. He discovers the pictorial marvels of the Prado and begins his first drawings and portraits. His first sketches are presented to Pablo Picasso by his father in 1919. Picasso is impressed by his canvasses and encourages him to pursue painting. He studies with Andre Lhote and Gino Severini, theoretician of cubism and futurism. His works from this period (1921-1925), still lifes, landscapes, and religious figures, are marked by cubism. In 1923 he creates the sets and the wardrobe for Manuel de Falla’s "El Retablo de Maese Pedro". Between 1926 and 1927 he is attracted by poetic surrealism, as are his new friends Francisco Bores, Ismael de la Serna and Pancho Cossío. During these years he exhibits in group together with Picasso, Beaudin, Bores, Fenosa and Suzanne Roger, in addition to several individual exhibits. In 1931 he marries Lulu Jordain. After this he creates intimate and sensual work, often with windows open to the outside, a symbol present throughout the body of his work. In 1946, after a period of reclusion and anguish, he begins to paint successfully again, participating in collective exhibits, but he does no individual work. He withdraws himself from painting and decides to give classes in Flamenco guitar, earning a living from this for 15 years. In 1965 he exhibits a retrospective of his work in Madrid and two years later he establishes a contract with the Theo gallery to exhibit annually in Madrid, Valencia and Barcelona. He returns to live again in Madrid where he paints numerous landscapes of the city and of the nearby Guadarrama mountain range. In 1984 he undergoes serious surgery but continues to paint until 1988, at which time he decides to retire. He dies on February 24, 1993, months before the Student Residence Halls of Madrid pay tribute to him. Finally, the Barbizón gallery in Paris dedicates a retrospective to him in 1998. His works can be found in renowned museums and Collections, among them the Reina Sofía in Madrid, and the Museum of Modern Art of Paris.

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