Painter trained at the School of Fine Arts in Valencia. From the beginning of his artistic career he was moved by the need to renew Spanish art, as well as by the function of art and the role of the artist in society. He was part of significant groups in the post-war Spanish scene such as ‘Los Siete’ (1949), ‘Parpalló’ (1956) and ‘Hondo’ (1960). In the latter, he developed novel figurative approaches in contrast to latent informalism. His exhibition at the Marlborough Gallery in London in 1966 was decisive in his career in gaining international recognition, and he has also exhibited at the Guggenheim in New York among others.
Although he initially had an informalist phase, he soon adopted a neo-figurative and expressionist style with a provocative and transformative trait. We must highlight his brief pictorial crisis during the 1970s, where he expressed his opposition to the Franco regime. From this moment on, his work began to deal with two general themes: the individual alone and the multitude. Over the years he focused especially on the theme of the crowd, manipulating images taken from the media. In this way, he managed to approach a political realism accompanied by social criticism and denunciation with his work. In the 1980s he became interested in the urban landscape with a reduced chromatic range, a set of works that he titled “spaces of solitude”. Even so, he did not abandon the crowd, a reference that he continued to work on with the aim of creating a work with political-social content through the development of a pictorial style based on the static movement of the image, its visual rhythm, and the use of the background-figure contrast.
The Fundació Suñol only preserves one work by the artist, entitled 125 (1971). This follows the theme of the crowd that Genovés liked so much, with a certain cinematic aspect. It was exhibited in 2021-2022 in the foundation’s collective exhibition ‘In three acts: Twenty faces and three crowds’.
List of artworks
125 , 1973
125 , 1973
Twenty Faces and Three Crowds
In Three Acts
The third and final act goes into the great iconographic motive of art, the element that questions the chronologies and brings to this day the verisimilitude of the whole...
Dialogues of the Gaze
A selection of works from the Col·lecció Josep Suñol with the aim of reflecting on the importance of the...
Documents and Memory
Act 24: Josep Suñol Collection's archive
Get a better understanding of the reality of culture in the private sphere but with a public...
5th Anniversary
Josep Suñol's Collection
A fresh insight into his collection that can help us understand the function of art in...
1915 – 1995
Col·lecció Josep Suñol
Owing to the number of works in the collection, the first show included a selection of the most representative pieces dating from 1915 to...
FACE(S)
A project by Susoespai
FACE(S) presents a selection of works done by the people participating in the workshops of Susoespai as part of the visits to the exhibition Twenty Faces and Three Crowds...
Rosa Romero: Mira-mira
Performance
At the end of the exhibition Twenty Faces and Three Crowds, the Fundació Suñol is organizing an artistic performance in collaboration with La Caldera les...
Per la cara!
Taller familiar
Amb motiu de l’exposició Vint rostres i tres multituds, el darrer acte del tríptic expositiu En tres actes, us proposem gaudir d’un taller per a tota la família on repensarem l’ús...
Guided tour
Walking with the River. Eva Lootz
We invite you to visit the exhibition Walking with the River by the artist Eva Lootz with the help of a member of the educational team of the Fundació...
Dialogue with Pol Guash and Valentín Romà
Online video
On the occasion of the exhibition Twenty Faces and Three Crowds, we invite the writer Pol Guasch to have a dialogue with the co-curator of the exhibition series In...
Guided tour with Valentín Roma to Twenty Faces and Three Crowds
On the occasion of the exhibition Twenty Faces and Three Crowds, the last chapter of the thryptic In Three Acts,we suggest you visit the exhibition with Valentín...
Guided tour to Twenty Faces and Three Crowds
Festa Major de Les Corts
Fundació Suñol organizes a visit to the exhibtion Twenty Faces and Three Crowds conducted by the fundation’s...
Les Escales
In 1976 Josep Suñol moved his residence to Les Escales, an address specially designed to house his growing collection of works of...
Itineraries
Dialogues of the Gaze
EL QUE SAPS / EL QUE SENTS / EL QUE PERCEPS: tres itineraris de l'exposició Diàlegs de la...
Dialogue
Helena Tatay and Valentín Roma
Helena Tatay and Valentín Roma offer us a guided tour of the exhibition Act 24: Documents and Memory. Josep Suñol Collection's...
Act 24: Documents and Memory. Josep Suñol Collection's Archive
Glòria Picazo and Jordi Colomer
Gloria Picazo and Jordi Colomer offer us a guided tour of the exhibition Act 24: Documents and Memory. Josep Suñol Collection's...
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