Rafael Canogar

Toledo, 1935 

At the age of ten, Canogar moved to Madrid, where in 1948 he would join Vázquez Díaz’s workshop as a disciple, while receiving drawing classes at the Círculo de Bellas Artes. In 1952 he presented his first exhibition at the Altamira gallery. His meeting that same year with the critic Manuel Conde marks a turn in his career, which is oriented towards informalist abstraction. In 1957 he participated in the founding of the group El Paso along with Feito, Millares, Saura, Rivera and others.

The group tries to translate, through a pictorially abstract world, the reality of the contemporary Spanish consciousness. This is a time of intense activity for Canogar, as he participates in exhibitions in several European countries, while he is selected for the Venice and Alexandria biennials. In 1964 he abandoned informalism, and his painting took a new direction. His new works are based on narrative chronicles taken from the media.

In 1965 he was invited as a professor to Mills College in Oakland, California, and upon returning to Spain, he began a more clearly realistic stage, evoking urban scenes that function as a social and political provocation and denunciation, and that address three-dimensionality in sculptural pieces of great impact. Since 1975, Canogar returns to abstraction. In 1983 he obtained the National Prize for Plastic Arts.