Angel Alonzo, Large Signed And Dated Collage 55

Set of cardboards cut and pasted on sheet, monogrammed and dated lower right AA 55; The life and art of ANGEL ALONSO are marked by a tragic founding event: his death sentence as a republican by the Francoist rebellion. Pardoned, released and then deported again, Alonso left Spain for good in 1947 to go to Paris. His first artistic encounters in Paris were formative: Vieira Da Silva, Arpad Szenes, Tal -Coat, de Stael. His friendship with the philosopher Maria ZAMBRANO will also be very important to him. In 1950, again threatened with extradition to Francoist Spain, his circle of relations and friendships (Michel Leiris, Francis Ponge, Henri Calet or even Pierre Descargues) fortunately saved him. In 1956, Alonso moved to La Laurencie in Limousin until 1961. In 1962, he discovered the landscapes of Genainvilliers (Eure) and he immediately decided to live and work there. This will be an important source of inspiration for him. From 1982, he moved partially to 7 rue Brézin, his friend Pierre Tal-Coat's studio, then permanently in 1990. If Alonso's personality and art were noticed and loved by thinkers or critics remarkable (CIORAN, Roger Caillois, Eugène Ionesco), the artist was "a great loner". Its very independent character, its workshops sometimes far from the capital led it to integrate very little into the traditional commercial process; this is how he refused to exhibit his paintings at the Jeanne Bucher gallery in 1952 for a monographic presentation. But Alonso today has the recognition of the Spanish Cultural State (perspective of a foundation in Santander) which has come to complete his many enlightened amateurs (the painter de Staël, the critic Guy Dumur, the collectors Vivien and Aymar de Gunzburg, Béatrice Rosenberg , Juan Carlos Marcet, Pascal Bonafoux). Stylistic evolution of the painter ALONSO arrived in Paris at the beginning of the 1950s and adopted lyrical abstraction, the only language accepted by the artistic community. At the turn of the 60s/70s, the artist radicalized his language by adopting the monochrome sometimes punctuated with a heterogeneous material (pebbles, pieces of wood) or sanctioned with a trace (memory of a passage or a past) . In the following decade 1975/1987 his passion for the material made him associate with his pure colors different substances which enriched or contrasted them: earth, straw, ashes, coal dust, burnt plants, crushed marbles, wood, crushed cigarette butts, papers. torn or rag… Its always exceptional, incomparable pure color is totally invented, made by the artist himself (Alonso hated acrylic and would never have bought a tube of paint on the market). Then until the end of his life, he experimented with sumptuous black monochromes enriched with the most beautiful of coal minerals, anthracite, which he also contrasted with a purely white surface. The sudden death of Angel Alonso in 1994 interrupted a daily experimental alchemy. Reference: Gallery Agnès Thiebault Paris).