Eugenio Granell
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Eugenio Granell (b. 1912, La Coruña, Spain) is an artist who is often described as the last Spanish Surrealist painter.
He started out as a political radical and a musician in the region of Galicia, where he was born. In 1927, he set up the magazine SIR (Sociedad Infantil Revolucionaria) with his brother Mario and in 1928 enrolled at the Escuela Superior de Música del Real Conservatorio, in Madrid. He frequented the company of Maruja Mallo, Joaquín Torres García, Alberto Sánchez and Ricardo Baroja. A member of the POUM (Workers’ Party for Marxist Unification) during the Civil War, he contributed actively to newspapers such as La Nueva Era, La Batalla and El Combatiente Rojo.
In 1939, he took exile in France and subsequently in the Dominican Republic. His affiliation with Trotsky made him the enemy of fascists and Stalinists and steered him towards a life marked by changes of residence. As María Zambrano said, during the first half of the twentieth century, Spain was a “master of dispersal and wastefulness” as it forced many of its most outstanding artists and intellectuals into a painful flight to other countries. Granell was one of those exiles from a very early age. France, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico,Guatemala and New York were his places of residence. In 1955, Granell travels with Zanetti Candle to New York and builds a strong friendship with Marcel Duchamp. Between 1957-1985 he lived mainly in Brooklyn, New York and was Professor Emeritus of Spanish Literature at City University of New York (CUNY).
Although springing from the depths of his subconscious like that of all the surrealists, Granell’s work is influenced by the places where he lived, particularly the exuberance of the Caribbean and the blend of Spanish and native cultures. Surrealism recognises no social function of art other than that of liberating the individual and society from the repression of reason, allowing the creator to express his instincts and dreams. In 1959, Andre Breton organized an exhibit called The Homage to Surrealism Exhibition to celebrate the Fortieth Anniversary of Surrealism which exhibited works by Salvador Dalí, Joan Miró, Enrique Tábara and Eugenio Granell.
There is absolutely no censorship in Granell’s work. Poetry blossoms, shrouding unrecognisable figures where trees, animals and people merge into hybrid beings that undergo constant metamorphosis. Works where the strong colours are framed insculptural compositions, in human figures on the verge of formal delirium, or in voluptuous compositions that appear to be a microscopic dimension of an unknown world. Playfulness, advocated by the surrealists as an expression of freedom, pervades the whole of this artist’s work. Granell’s dialogue and writing have always ironically mocked solemnity and reason itself. Such are his painting, his sculpture and his readymades: an extremely beautiful elegy to freedom and the purity of feelings.
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[edit] References
- www.guiarte.com/granell/
