AGUSTÍN REDONDELA (Madrid, 1922 – 2015).
“Paisaje de Pareja”, 1973.
Oil on canvas.
Signed and dated in the lower right corner.
Measures: 46 x 55 cm; 70,5 x 78 cm (frame).
Agustín Redondela takes his first steps in the art world, thanks to his father, the scenographer José González Redondela, from whom he learned the importance of composition and scenography. Interested in the world of plastic arts, he began to attend the School of Arts and Crafts in Madrid, where he came into contact with the artists of the renowned "School of Madrid". Despite the stylistic differences found with the masters of the school, Benjamin Palencia and Daniel Vazquez Diaz, Redondela would be influenced by the ability to build landscapes through planes, scenographic configuration used by Vazquez Diaz. It is then, when the works of Redondela take a compositional direction that is directed towards the understanding of the scenes from a more schematic and geometric point of view, working to a greater extent, the thematic landscape of the Spanish geography. The stylistic personality that accompanies the artist from Madrid, emits a style that tends towards simplicity and purification of forms, composed by ranges of colors restricted to cold tones, among which predominate touches of blue, mauve and gray. Given his relationship with the artists of the Escuela Madrileña, Redondela is recognized as heir to the renovating approaches of the landscape art of the Escuela de Vallecas, although always showing a personal style. Redondela's work was shown and exhibited in various competitions and biennials, he represented Spain in the exhibitions of Cairo and Alexandria, he attended the Venice Biennale in 1950. He was presented in Barcelona, in the Biosca Gallery in Madrid and in the I Hispano-American Biennial, 1951, in addition to winning the Scholarship for the United States of the Cathreswoid Foundation of Bryn Mawr (1954), exhibiting in 1955 at the Sagittarius Gallery in New York. The decade of the sixties was the period in which Redondela began to be recognized by the most demanding critics. After a long dedication to painting, Redondela won the National Painting Prize in 1953, the First Medal of the National Exhibition in 1957, the Rodríguez-Acosta Foundation Prize, as well as the award of the Royal Academy of San Fernando, among others.