JUAN MANUEL DÍAZ-CANEJA
Palencia, (Spain) 1905 – Madrid, (Spain) 1988    

In 1923 he went to live in Madrid in order to prepare to start studying architecture, and there he attended Vázquez Díaz’s studio, where he learnt the practical side of art. In 1925 he participated in the Salón de los Ibéricos, and in 1927 he formed friendships with Alberto Sánchez and Benjamín Palencia, with whom he took part in the School of  Vallecas. Until 1928 he lived in the Residencia de Estudiantes, taking an active part in its cultural life, and this was followed by a short stay in Paris. On his return he was included in the first Salón de los Independientes (1929), and in 1934 he presented his first solo exhibition at the Museo de Arte Moderno (Madrid). His pre-war work tended towards Cubism verging on abstraction, which he shared with his vocation as a poet. During the Civil War he fought in the Republican ranks, and afterwards he was imprisoned from 1948 to 1951 for his militancy as a communist. After 1940 he fully embraced the theme of landscape, which connected with his interests in Vallecas before the war. This work was presented for the first time at the Galería Estilo (1945). These landscapes are characterised by a range of yellows and earthy colours that provide an analysis of the colours of Castile, in strongly schematicised compositions that occur repeatedly throughout his work. During the years he spent in prison he did not stop painting. In 1951 he took part in the first Bienal Hispanoamericana de Arte, and in the fifties he presented his work at the Museo de Arte Moderno (1951 and 1953) and the galleries of the Dirección General de Bellas Artes (1957 and 1959), and in 1956 he took part in the Biennale di Venezia. In the late fifties there was increased emphasis on the theme of still-lifes, which he incorporated into his landscapes. During this period Caneja frequented the circles of writers such as Celaya, Blas de Otero and Juan Benet. In 1964 a solo exhibition of his work was held at the Galerie du Passeur in Paris. In the mid-sixties his paintings became more essential and there was a simplification of the variations on the landscape of Castile, in a style that he maintained during the following two decades. In 1968 he established a relationship with the Galería Theo, where he exhibited on various occasions (1968, 1970, 1974, 1978). In 1980 he received the National Visual Arts Prize, and in 1984, four years before he died, there was a selective exhibition of his work (at the National Library), which travelled to other venues in Castilla y León. After his death, the Fundación Díaz-Caneja was created in Palencia in 1995, and various retrospectives were organised –at the Centro Cultural Conde Duque (1994), the IVAM (1997) and the MNCARS (1999).