Juan Genovés

Spanish painter and graphic artist, one of the most prominent figures of the figurative movement in his country. He was born in Valencia and studied at the School of Fine Arts in that city. His first steps were taken within informalism and material painting, until, in the sixties, he returned to the field of figuration. In 1950 he joined the group Los Siete, in 1956 the group Parpalló, and in 1959 he was a founding member of the group Hondo. Among his main influences are expressionism, Pop Art and cinema. From Pop Art he adopted the use of clothing and real objects glued directly onto the canvas; his relationship with the world of cinema is evident in the use of narrative procedures, such as tracking shots, close-ups or the succession of images representing several moments of the same action. His painting contained, in the sixties, a strong critical, demanding and denunciatory content, characterized by a neutral and blurred color palette. In the following decade he toned down these contents in favor of more vivid chromatic contrasts and themes of a more anecdotal nature.