Rafael Canogar Gómez

RAFAEL CANOGAR GÓMEZ (Toledo, 1935).
"Basílica", 1998.
Silkscreen on canvas, Copy 33/80.
Signed, dated and justified in pencil.
Measurements: 104 x 77 cm.
Co-founder of the group "El Paso" in 1957, during the fifties he developed a fully informalist work, which drifted during the sixties into a complex figuration which became more and more narrative. 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.