ANDREU ALFARO
Valencia, 1929- Valencia 2012

He moved to Granada in 1898, and there he began his training in 1910 at the Escuela de Artes y Oficios and in the studio of José Larrocha, with whom he exhibited for the first time at the Centro Artístico (1915). He often travelled to Madrid, where he studied with Cecilio Pla, and in 1919 he settled there, frequenting the Residencia de Estudiantes. From 1922 to 1932 he lived in Paris.
During that period his painting evolved from his naturalist and Symbolist works towards Ingres-like forms influenced by Barradas. In 1923 he took part in producing the sets and costumes for “El retablo de Maese Pedro”. He attended the Académie de la Grande Chaumière and became a member of the School of Paris, also establishing relationships with Picasso and Gris. Under their influence he shifted towards a post-Cubist style that he used in still-lifes and landscapes. In 1925 he took part in the “Salón de los Ibéricos” in Madrid, and the following year his first solo exhibition was held at the Galerie des Quatre Chemins. In 1927 he began to produce works in which Surrealist influences could be seen. He returned to Spain in 1932 and assisted Lorca in the activities of La Barraca, and in 1933 he presented a solo exhibition at the “Sociedad de Amigos del Arte” and then moved to Barcelona, having successfully competed for a position as a teacher at an institute. During the Civil War he participated in the Spanish Pavilion at the Exposition Internationale in Paris (1937). He stayed in Paris Briefly in 1939 and then moved to Buenos Aires, where he remained from 1940 to 1949. In 1944 he held a solo exhibition at the Galería Müller, “Construcciones, maderas y piedras patagónicas”, in which he showed assemblages of fossilized wood, while also continuing to be very active as a painter. In 1948 he returned to París, where he renewed his friendship with Picasso and started his series of “Tejados” (Roofs) and “Mujeres sentadas” (Seated Women), holding a solo exhibition at the Galerie Henriette Niepce in 1951. In the mid-fifties he went back to Granada and embarked on a sequence of series on themes connected with the place (“Paseo de los Cipreses”, “Albaicín”), with which he explored the organization of pictorial space. He began to achieve recognition in the pictorial space. He began to achieve recognition in the sixties, after an exhibition at the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo (Madrid, 1962), followed by others at Juana Mordó (1969,1975). The various series he produced during these decades include “Homenaje a El Greco” (Tribute to El Greco), 1964, “Cabezas multiples” (Multiple Heads), 1972, “Misteriosa Alhambra” (Mysterious Alhambra), 1975, and “Cabezas besándose” (Kissing Heads), 1980. In 1981 he received the National Visual Arts Prize. Major retrospectives of his work include those presented by the Banco de Granada (1973) and the MNCARS (1996).