Eusebio Sempere
Eusebio Sempere | |
---|---|
Born | Eusebio Sempere Juan[1] 3 April 1923 |
Died | 10 April 1985 Onil, Alicante, Spain | (aged 62)
Education | Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Carlos de Valencia |
Known for | Painting |
Notable work | "Relieves luminosos móviles" (Mobile luminous reliefs) |
Movement | kinetic art |
Eusebio Sempere Juan (3 April 1923 – 10 April 1985) was a Spanish sculptor, painter, and graphic artist whose abstract geometric works make him the most representative artist of the Kinetic art movement in Spain and one of Spain's foremost artists. His use of repetition of line and mastery of color to manipulate the way light plays on the surface give depth to his pictorial compositions.[2]
Biography
Sempere was born in
In 1948, Sempere went to study in Paris, where he met
Returning to Spain in 1959, he moved to Valencia, where art critic Aguilera Cerní, editor of Arte vivo (The Living Art) magazine, introduced Sempere to the Group Parpalló, a cultural movement not limited to the visual arts.[4] Formed in 1957, it included artists such as Castellano, Genovés, Navarro, Soria, Michavila, Andres Alfaro, Manolo Gil, Amadeo Gabino, Isidoro Balaguer, and others striving to renew the cultural landscape in Valencia. The group published a magazine, called at first Arte vivo and later Parpalló, and began group exhibitions.
In 1964, Sempere was granted a Ford Foundation fellowship which allowed him to travel to the United States and put on an exhibition at the
Still exhibiting regularly at the Denise Rene Gallery in Paris, he participated in some notable public projects; the best-known examples are the sculptures and carved railings at the Museo Esculturas al Aire Libre (Museum of Outdoor Sculpture) in Madrid. Sempere persuaded his artist friends, including
In 1980, he won the Gold Medal for Merit in Fine Arts, awarded by the
Work
Sempere's work is defined by the abstraction of its elements, geometric repetition and linearity, all of which evolved into his synthesis of
His personal contribution to the development of kinetic art is a series of abstract geometric constructions that demonstrate the perceptual effects of optical vibration and the illusion of motion. Light also plays an important role in his artistic work. Perhaps influenced by Levantine sources, Sempere uses it as the main element to organize his creations harmoniously. His paintings are considered as two-dimensional surfaces where the artist plays with visual elements—light, colors and tones—using perceptual and optical effects to create suggestive forms in repeating geometric shapes.
Sempere worked in many different media, from drawings, gouaches, oil paintings, and silk screen prints to sculptures of iron and stainless steel. Two of his works can be seen in the Museum of Outdoor Sculpture in Madrid, for which he created the rails, now painted blue, which suggest a moiré pattern when walking beside them, and a mobile which he had loaned to the museum.
The Alicante Museum of Contemporary Art (Museo Alicantino de Arte Contemoraneo) contains the collection of 20th-century art donated by Sempere to the city in 1978. It is located in Alicante's oldest civil building, the Casa de la Asegurada, which dates to 1685. The nucleus of the collection contains works by Spanish artists of the 1950s: Alfaro, Canogar, Chillida,
Sempere's outdoor sculpture of metal rods at the Juan March Foundation in Madrid inspired two Spanish physicists to develop a new method for cancelling noise. Discussing the mechanics of sound attenuation over beers, they realized that the sculpture might reveal an optimum arrangement of materials that dampens noise not by absorbing it, but by interfering with the transmission of sound waves.[6]
Exhibitions
- 1949: exhibition at Mateu Art Gallery, Valencia
- 1961: first exhibition in Madrid in the Ateneo
- 1965: exhibited in Madrid in Juana Mordót Gallery
- 1972: exhibition at the Egam Gallery in Madrid
- 1975: exhibition at Rayuela Gallery in Madrid
- 1980: retrospective exhibition organized by the Ministry of Culture
- 1985: show of his graphic work 1946-1982, Banco de Bilbao, Bilbao
- 1998: retrospective exhibition at the IVAM, Valencia
- 2018: retrospective exhibition at Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid [7]
Museums
- Valencian Institute of Modern Art IVAM, Valencia
- Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia
- Modern Art Museum of Barcelona
- Abstract Art Museum of Cuenca
- Fogg Museum, Harvard University, USA
- Museum of Modern Art MOMA, New York
- Museum of Hamburg, Germany
- Fundación Juan March, Madrid
- MUA, Museum of the University of Alicante
- Museum of Contemporary Art of Alicante (MACA)
- Coleccion Masaveu, Spain
Awards
- 1964 - Ford Fellowship International Institute of New York
- 1980 - Gold Medal for Merit in Fine Arts, Ministry of Culture, Madrid
- 1983 - Prince of Asturias Prize for the Arts
- 1983 - Prize Alfons Roig, Council of Valencia
References
- ISBN 978-84-370-9532-5.
- ^ Silió, Fernando (1982). Sempere, Obra Grafica. Madrid: Catálogo razonado Madrid.
- ^ Bonet, Juan Manuel (1999). Doce años en París. Eusebio Sempere, los años de formación 1940-55. Universidad Politécnica de Valencia.
- ^ Aguilera Cerni, Vicente (1977). Nota sobre Eusebio Sempere, Cuadernos Guadalimar, Ediciones Rayuela.
- ^ Melia, Joseph. Sempere.
- ^ Kirschner, Elizabeth (May 1999). "Sculpting Silence". Popular Science. 254 (5): 32.
- ^ "Eusebio Sempere". Museo Reina Sofia. Retrieved 16 August 2018.
External links