Antonio Saura

Florence, Palazzo Strozzi, Mostra Mercato Nazionale d'Arte Contemporanea, Odyssea Antonio Saura, 1963

Colour: The colours in the catalogue illustration are fairly accurate, although the overall tonality is slightly brighter and more vibrant, with the greys in the corners of the composition tending more towards lighter cement grey, and with greater variation in the dark tones overall in the original. The catalogue illustration does not fully convey the rich impasto and texture present in the original. Condition: This work is in very good condition and the canvas appears to have been re-stretched. There are a few isolated matrices of fine surface cracks, some with raised edges, in places throughout the composition. A small patch of stable craquelure is visible on close inspection to the black pigment towards the top of the lower right quadrant. There is some evidence of very minor frame rubbing with a few associated small media losses, notably to the lower half of the right extreme edge, to the extreme corners and to the right side of the upper extreme edge. There is some slight undulation to the canvas overturn at the left side of the upper extreme edge and a tiny spot of paint loss to the upper left part of the lower left quadrant. Under ultraviolet there is a small vertical line of retouching towards the top of the left extreme edge, three very small spots of retouching to the centre of the composition, and three further small spots of retouching to the top left corner of the lower right quadrant.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

This work is registered in the Antonio Saura Archives, Geneva, and is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity

"I like the most conflicting things: I like painters whose message is very dramatic: Rembrandt, Goya, Van Gogh, Picasso."

 

(the artist in Exhibition Catalogue, New York, Pierre Matisse Gallery, Antonio Saura: Recent Paintings, 1964)

 

In a passionate flurry of explosive brushwork, the magnificent body of Angela emerges from the picture plane. Constructed by almost convulsive movements, her contours, jaggedly defined with strokes of dramatic chiaroscuro, seem to overflow the confines of the canvas. Saura's technique - brushes and spatula loaded with paint, and then applied in ferocious layers of impasto - results in a tactile surface which pulsates with physical energy. Saura is the artist-creator: for all the violence of his assault of paint on canvas, Angela also illuminates his reverence for the female form. The monumental scale of her voluptuous body and her dominance over her surroundings reveal Angela's conception as akin to a loving ritual. Richly animated and passionately painted, Angela is charged with dramatic tension, the traditional portrait genre broken down and reconfigured into an arresting icon of femininity.

 

Angela was painted in 1959, a critical year for the development of Saura's mature pictorial language. The violent suppression of student demonstrations in Madrid in 1956 marked a turning point for Saura's pictorial language and let him to adopt the powerfully restricted palette and animated treatment of form evident in Angela.  José Ayllon describes Saura's paintings as 'highly dramatic works in which the white... creates wide gulfs of space-light, full of anguish in their irreversibility. The black signs interweave in an attempt to link themselves with that vague image which  struggles to define itself but which, in the end acquires the value of a revelation' (José Ayllon, Antonio Saura, Barcelona 1969, p. 51).  In Angela Saura reinterprets the universal theme of Woman, creating a masterpiece in majestic homage to the female form.