Manuel Colmeiro Guimarás (Pontevedra, 1901 - Salvaterra do Minho, Pontevedra, 1999). "Workers of Buenos Aires", ca.1922. Oil on canvas. Signed in the lower right corner.

Lot description

MANUEL COLMEIRO GUIMARÁS (Pontevedra, 1901 - Salvaterra do Minho, Pontevedra, 1999). "Workers of Buenos Aires", ca.1922. Oil on canvas. Signed in the lower right corner. Catalogued and reproduced in "Manuel Colmeiro. Espazos e encadramentos", Concello de Vigo 2021 (catalogue raisonné of the exhibition of the same name at MARCO, Museo de Arte Contemporánea de Vigo). A copy of the catalogue is enclosed. Provenance: private collection of Manuel Ramón Pador, director of the Hospital Centro Gallego in Buenos Aires. Measurements: 46 x 55 cm; 81 x 91 cm (frame). Manuel Colmeiro's painting developed in accordance with his vicissitudes in life, as a Galician exile and in his continuous coming and going from Argentina to his homeland. In the 1920s he was in Buenos Aires, and this early painting showing a day's work exudes a characteristic lyricism in its atmospheric capture, and an intimate feeling in the redefinition of social realism that will lead him to develop an irreducible language that transcends the popular element to take root in the identity. A Galician painter who emigrated to Buenos Aires, Manuel Colmeiro combined his artistic studies there at night with work in a shoe factory. For a year he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts, which he abandoned, however, to form a working group with other painters and sculptors. After this period, in which he developed an expressionist style of work, he returned to Galicia in 1926. Two years later he held his first exhibition in the Faro de Vigo salons, and soon obtained a grant from the Diputación de Pontevedra to travel to Madrid and further his training at the San Fernando Academy of Fine Arts. In the capital, however, Manuel Colmeiro showed a greater interest in studying the great masters at first hand in the Prado Museum. He continued to make himself known, and in 1932 he took part in an exhibition of new Galician painters at Federico García Lorca's Barraca. However, at the outbreak of the Civil War he returned to Buenos Aires, where he remained until 1948. During this second period in Argentina he was in contact with Luis Seoane, Rafael Dieste and Rafael Alberti, among others. In 1949 he moved to Paris, where he remained for decades, until 1989, when he returned to Galicia for good. In fact, Colmeiro is considered part of the Spanish School of Paris. In the 1960s he achieved massive international recognition, with solo exhibitions in London, Paris and Madrid. During these years his work focused on popular Galician themes, its culture and its people. He was part of the group known as "Os Novos" or "Os Renovadores", together with Seoane, Laxeiro, Arturo Souto and Maside. All of them, born at the beginning of the 20th century, were considered continuators of the "Nós Generation", and had in common a work with Galician themes combined with avant-garde aesthetics, mainly expressionism, cubism and abstraction. Throughout his career, this artist was awarded several prizes, including the Prêmio das Artes de la Junta de Galicia in 1987 and the Prêmio Celanova, Casa dos Poetas in 1996. He is currently represented in the Afundación Collection, the María José Jove Foundation, the Abanca Collection and the Museum of Pontevedra, among other collections.