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Antonio Saura
"If I could not paint, I would have to use other means of expression : stab the walls, … cream."
+ Coup de coeur
"Coup de coeur" by Antonio Saura
Dora Maar - Décembre 2005
Faut-il connaître l'homme pour décrypter l'oeuvre, ou bien le regard sur l'oeuvre permet-il d'atteindre l'homme ? Pour ma part, les deux approches simultanées me paraissent indispensables. Peintre de séries et des ténèbres, Saura aborda à deux reprises le thème des portraits de Dora Maar : en 1964 et en 1983. Hommage à une période majeure dans l'oeuvre de son compatriote Pablo Picasso et à Dora Maar sa conscience politique, hommage à son engagement aux moments aigus de la guerre d'Espagne, hommage aux femmes et mères en deuil. « La femme qui pleure » demeure le symbole cru d'un régime assassin qui plongea un peuple dans le chaos. Enfant marqué au fer rouge de souvenirs insoutenables, Saura fut témoin des horreurs de cette guerre, puis adversaire pugnace du régime franquiste. Il faut le savoir ! Reprenant à son compte la célèbre phrase de Picasso : « un tableau est une somme de destructions », l'oeuvre de Saura est une peinture enragée, dans laquelle aucun confort n'est toléré. Tout comme il faut connaître son attachement viscéral aux livres, aux livres sous tous ses aspects, Saura fut peintre mais autant écrivain (poésie, essais), graveur, lithographe. Son oeuvre imprimé lui paraissant d'une importance majeure. A l'évidence, il m'a toujours semblé qu'une toile ou une estampe de Saura était là pour maintenir l'oeil ouvert.
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+ Stamp
Stamp by Antonio Saura
fictional stamp
The publication of a postal stamp is often a homage paid by a nation to a place, an event, a remarkable cause or a character which count. The painters and other artists do not escape from this rule. Some are however "forgotten" of postal art. Here, gathered below (French or foreign), emitted stamps (206) or simple studies of stamp (224) in homage to the artists represented on our website. The first French stamp was emitted in 1849, England preceded us by ten years. There is often a share of voyage in this small form of shape paper. The stamp circulates, sails, flies away, it makes dream, then dream a little. M.C.
When the stamp is really emitted, the artist name is preceded of an asterisk (*). It is certain that we do not know each stamp emitted for such or such artist; do not hesitate with us to make known them!
Discover all the stamps
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Notes of biography
Antonio Saura was born in 1939 in Hesca (Spain). He started painting at the age of 18, but never followed artistic studies. His childhood was marked by the Spanish civil war and the horrendous sights he had, marked him for ever. His first personal exhibition was organized in 1950 (Saragossa).
Antonio Saura reached Paris in 1953 and worked with the surrealist group. Deeply disappointed by this experience, he took refuge with an informal painting which seemed to him only capable of releasing the expression of a pure psychic automatism. In 1957, Saura was co- founder of the group El Paso (Madrid), the group that tried to give a new impulse to the contemporary Spanish art and to defend the informal Art. The artist advocated the refusal of the classic criteria in the painting: representation, composition, balance, beauty. He painted "imaginary Portraits" in homage to masters of the Spanish painting, "Women", "Crowds", "Crucifixions".
At the end of the 70s, Saura painted big dimensions canvases "Ecorchés"; the artist was fascinated by the monstrous, the convulsive, the intense, marrying love and cruelty which he considered inseparable (series of portraits of Dora Maar). In 1991, then in 1995, Antonio Saura worked with his brother, the famous director of cinema Carlos Saura, on two versions of the opera Carmen.
Year 1994 was dedicated to a series of 365 drawings, «Diaro on 1994». He created monumental paintings for state commissions, then altogether, throughout his artistic career, important set works on paper, etchings and lithographs.
Passionately fond of books about which he told he could not do without the contact, he illustrated naturally numerous works. His work is on the cymas of any biggest museums of the world.
Antonio Saura died in Cuenca (Spain) in 1998.
Artists on display
The art and the artists display: proclamations, galleries, museums, personal or collective exhibitions. On walls or in shop windows, wise or rebels, posters warn, argue, show. Some were specially conceived by an artist for such or such event, other, colder, have only the letter.
Some were created in lithographic technic, most are simple offset reproductions. They are many those who like collecting these rectangles of paper, monochrome or in games of colours, in matt paper or brilliant, with many words or almost dumb.
We are happy also to be able to greet, by this pages, mythical galleries as those of Denise René, Louis Carré, Claude Bernard, Berheim Jeune, Maeght, Pierre Loeb and others.
Complete work(s)
Complete work(s)
*« Antonio Saura, l'oeuvre gravé 1958-1984 », M. Galfetti, Ed Rivière, Paris, 1985
*« L'oeuvre imprime 1958-1984 », M. Galfetti, Cabinet des estampes, Genève, 1985
*« L'oeuvre imprimé, la obra grafica », P. Cramer et O. Weber-Caflisch, Ed. P. Cramer, Genève, 2000
* « L'oeuvre peint, dessiné et autres travaux », en préparation, O. Weber-Caflisch et Fondation Saura
* « Les livres illustrés », en préparation, Patrick Cramer et O. Weber-Caflisch
* « Les affiches », en préparation, J.-C. Giroud, O. Weber-Caflisch et Fondation Saura
Bibliographic track and more
To read about the artist :
- « Antonio Saura : Peintures 1956-1985 », Musée d'Art et d'Histoire, Genève, 1986
- « Antonio Saura », G. de Cortanze, Ed. de la Différence, Paris, 1994
- « Antonio Saura », Biennale de Venise, 1995
- « Antonio Saura », Dore Ashton, Ed. Galerie Lelong, 1997
- « Klee, point final », A. Saura, Ed. L'Echoppe, 1999
- « Antonio Saura », cat., Ed. Museo Casa de la Moneda, Madrid, 2000
- « Antonio Saura », cat., Ed. Fondation Miro, Barcelone, 1980
- « Notes d'Antonio Saura », A. Cirici Pellicer, Saura, Ed. Yves Rivière, 1980
- « Saura, Multitudes », O. Weber Caflisch et autres, Ed. Gobierno de Aragon, 2003
- « Tauromachie », J. Bescos, A. Saura et M. Cohen, Ed. 5 continents, Paris, 2008
To read from the artist :
- « Contra El Guernica. Libelo », Ediciones Turner, Madrid, 1982
- « Antonio Saura par lui même », Ed. 5 Continents, 2009
Website :
www.antoniosaura.org/More :
+ Stamp
Stamp by Antonio Saura
fictional stamp
The publication of a postal stamp is often a homage paid by a nation to a place, an event, a remarkable cause or a character which count. The painters and other artists do not escape from this rule. Some are however "forgotten" of postal art. Here, gathered below (French or foreign), emitted stamps (206) or simple studies of stamp (224) in homage to the artists represented on our website. The first French stamp was emitted in 1849, England preceded us by ten years. There is often a share of voyage in this small form of shape paper. The stamp circulates, sails, flies away, it makes dream, then dream a little. M.C.
When the stamp is really emitted, the artist name is preceded of an asterisk (*). It is certain that we do not know each stamp emitted for such or such artist; do not hesitate with us to make known them!
Discover all the stamps
+ Listen
Listen
+ Watch
Watch
Art movements
All art movements
See & discover
Beyond works currently in stock, it seemed to me useful to combine business with pleasure by letting you discover others works by artists in my gallery. These artworks, now sold or removed from our website, have been in our stock in the past.
These pages will undoubtedly make it possible for some of you to associate an image with its title or the other way round, for others it will be a good time to discover more on such and such artist. For the sake of confidentiality – the pieces being no longer available – we won't display neither their numbering or their price. For whatever reason, make sure to visit this amazing art database with to date 6441 online works just for your pleasure! Michelle Champetier
See & discover