RAFAEL CANOGAR GÓMEZ (Toledo, 1935).

RAFAEL CANOGAR GÓMEZ (Toledo, 1935). "Imposta", 2007. Construction on handmade paper and painted in oil glued to board. Signed and dated lower right: "Canogar 07"; inscribed lower left: 'IMPOSTA'; date, signature and inscription on the back: "07 / Canogar / 'IMPOSTA'". Work catalogued on the artist's website. Exhibitions: - 2007. Rafael Canogar. Fragmentations. Oporto (Portugal), Galeria Sala Maior, 21 April-30 May. - 2009. Rafael Canogar Accademico di Spagna. Florence (Italy), Archivio di Stato di Firenze, 13 May-24 June. - 2010. Rafael Canogar. 75 Years/75 Works. Porto (Portugal) Centro de Congresos da Alfândega, 13-28 November. Bibliography: - BARBERO, Giovanna and DORFLES, Gillo: Rafael Canogar Accademico di Spagna. Roma, Verso l'Arte Edizioni, 2009 (Repr. colour p. 52, mixed media). - PAREDES, Tómas, BARBERO, Giovanna and GARCIA BERRIO, Antonio: Rafael Canogar. 75 años/obras. Museo de la Alfándega, Oporto (Portugal), 2010 (Repr. colour p. 163 and 258 with mixed technique). - VIVAS, Lola: Rafael Canogar. Fragmentações. Oporto, Galeria Sala Maior, 2007 (Repr. colour s/p., mixed media). Presents label of the Cordeiros Gallery. Sizes: 151 x 113 cm; 172 x 120 cm (frame). Based on an image where abstraction becomes aware of the compositional space, Canogar confronts grey, red and black, three recurrent tonalities in his production, which reveal an open debate towards socio-cultural concepts. This use of flat, aesthetically opposed colours, which draw from different primary colours, responds to the desire for opposition and contradiction that prevails in many of the artist's works. In fact, Canogar states: "My work wishes to reflect, in its form of birth, in its genesis, those two elementary and primary forces that have always accompanied man: constructive and destructive forces, or construction-deconstruction. Opposing forces and the struggle of opposites, as a structural part of my work; as the reality of man who lives immersed in his own contradictions". Co-founder of the group "El Paso" in 1957, during the 1950s he developed a fully informalist work, which in the 1960s developed into an increasingly complex narrative figuration. From the 1960s onwards he achieved international recognition as a visiting professor at Milles College in California to teach the art course 1965-66, and as a guest artist at the Tamarind Lithography Workshop in Los Angeles in 1969. Between 1972 and 1974 he was also invited by the D.A.A.D. in Berlin as an artist in residence. During his mature period, from 1975 onwards, Canogar invented a new iconography, his own and personal, which he expressed through the mask, the head, the face, as a representation of man who loses his individuality and becomes a plastic sign. His work was also recognised in Spain, and during the 1980s he was a member of the Advisory Council of the General Directorate of Fine Arts of the Ministry of Culture, of the Board of Trustees of the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Madrid, and a member of the Board of Directors of the National Heritage. Throughout his career, Canogar has held countless solo and group exhibitions. Among the personal exhibitions, several have been retrospectives, including: Museo Nacional de Arte Contemporáneo and Biblioteca Nacional de Madrid, Musée d'Art Moderne de la Villa de Paris, Sonia Heine Foundation in Oslo, Konsthalle de Lund in Sweden, Paris Art Center, Bochum Art Museum in Germany, Istituto di Storia dell'Arte de Parma, Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, Fundación Casa del Cordón de Burgos, Museo de Santa Cruz de Toledo, Museo Reina Sofía in Madrid, etc.