José Caballero (11 June 1915 – 26 May 1991) was a Spanish

painter Painting is a Visual arts, visual art, which is characterized by the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called "matrix" or "Support (art), support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with ...

. He was one of the most varied artists (in technique, style and theme). His way of understanding painting during the surrounding the

civil war A civil war is a war between organized groups within the same Sovereign state, state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies.J ...

showed little similarities during the period.

Career

At the end of the 1920s he met poet Adriano del Valle and in 1930, Daniel Vázquez Díaz, when he was painting frescoes in La Rábida monastery. He arrived in Madrid in 1931, but maintained his hometown ties, where that year he held his first individual exhibition in the Mercantile Circle. In 1932, along with

Federico García Lorca Federico del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús García Lorca (5 June 1898 – 19 August 1936) was a Spanish poet, playwright, and theatre director. García Lorca achieved international recognition as an emblematic member of the Generation of '27, a g ...

and others, he produced an exhibition of scandalous drawings in the Popular Ateneo that lasted for only one day. In 1933 Lorca invited him to La Barraca, where he created sets of drawings. He met Alberto Sánchez,

Pablo Neruda Pablo Neruda ( ; ; born Ricardo Eliécer Neftalí Reyes Basoalto; 12 July 190423 September 1973) was a Chilean poet-diplomat and politician who won the 1971 Nobel Prize in Literature. Neruda became known as a poet when he was 13 years old an ...

Rafael Alberti Rafael Alberti Merello (16 December 1902 – 28 October 1999) was a Spanish poet, a member of the Generation of '27. He is considered one of the greatest literary figures of the so-called ''Silver Age'' of Spanish Literature, and he won numer ...

Miguel Hernández Miguel Hernández Gilabert (30 October 1910 – 28 March 1942 ) was a 20th-century Spanish-language poet and playwright associated with the Generation of '27 and the Generation of '36 movements. Born and raised in a family of low resources, he ...

, Maruja Mallo, Joaquín Torres García and

Luis Buñuel Luis Buñuel Portolés (; 22 February 1900 – 29 July 1983) was a Spanish and Mexican filmmaker who worked in France, Mexico and Spain. He has been widely considered by many film critics, historians and directors to be one of the greatest and ...

. The latter introduced him to

surrealism Surrealism is an art movement, art and cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists aimed to allow the unconscious mind to express itself, often resulting in the depiction of illogical or dreamlike s ...

, showing him, for example, the collages of

Max Ernst Max Ernst (; 2 April 1891 – 1 April 1976) was a German-born painter, sculptor, printmaker, graphic artist, and poet. A prolific artist, Ernst was a primary pioneer of the Dada movement and surrealism in Europe. He had no formal artistic trai ...

. In 1935 Caballeros created three surrealist posters for his performance together with del Valle in the Ateneo of Sevilla and illustrated poems for Lorca and Neruda. He contributed to magazines such as ''Cruz y Raya'', ''Noreste'', ''Línea'', ''Caballo Verde para la poesía'', (Green Horse for Poetry) etc. Less known was his participation in the first Drawing Fair (1935) of the Iberian Artist Society. In 1937 he spent months at the battlefront producing drawings and maps. After the war he made surrealist illustrations filled with contents related to Catholicism in magazines such as '' Vértice'' or ''Santo y Seña'' convinced by Dionisio Ridruejo. In 1945 he participated in the III Salón de los Once (Eleven's Hall). Five years later, he was invited to the XXV edition of the Biennale Exhibition of Venice and held his first major individual exhibition in Madrid, in the Clan gallery. However, neither of these tendencies continued, especially in the fifties, when he left the figurative arts and tried to unite geometric abstraction with the matter-like expressivity of informalism. The results varied but always represented his creative interests, who remained influential in the artistic environment of

Madrid Madrid ( ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in Spain, most populous municipality of Spain. It has almost 3.5 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 7 million. It i ...

until his death. He received Spain's National Award for Plastic Arts in 1984. José Caballero's paintings are showcased at the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo in Madrid.Museo de Arte Contemporáneo
,

Saatchi Gallery The Saatchi Gallery is a London gallery for contemporary art and an independent charity opened by Charles Saatchi in 1985. Exhibitions which drew upon the collection of Charles Saatchi, starting with US artists and minimalism, moving to the ...

Official web site

References

External links

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Spanish painters, biographies
{{DEFAULTSORT:Caballero, Jose 1915 births 1991 deaths People from Huelva 20th-century Spanish painters 20th-century Spanish male artists Spanish male painters