Estate of Manuel Espinosa

Manuel Espinosa, Variación Cromática, 1966, Oil on canvas, 94 7/16 x 47 3/16 in.

Manuel Espinosa at home.

Manuel Espinosa, Untitled, 1967, Oil on canvas, 59 1/16 x 39 5/16 in. (150 x 100 cm.)

Manuel Espinosa, Almudena, 1966, Oil on canvas, 35 3/8 x 35 3/8 in. (90 x 90 cm.)

Manuel Espinosa, Sicardi | Ayers | Bacino, 2013, Installation view

Manuel Espinosa, Aadnarx, 1973, Acrylic on canvas, 59 1/16 in. x 59 1/16 in.

Manuel Espinosa, Nausica Las Rocas, Gerty Medow, c. 1977. Acrylic on canvas, 39.4 in. x 39.4 in.

Manuel Espinosa, Aamedhag, 1974. Acrylic on canvas, 39 3/8 in. x 39 3/8 in.

Manuel Espinosa, Sicardi | Ayers | Bacino, 2013, Installation view

Manuel Espinosa, Untitled, c. 1970. Lithographic ink on paper, 7 7/8 in. x 7 3/4 in.

Manuel Espinosa, Sicardi | Ayers | Bacino, 2013, Installation view

Biography

MANUEL ESPINOSA
[1912-2006, Argentina]

Although known today for his participation in the Asociación Arte Concreto-Invención (AACI), Manuel Espinosa (1912-2006) was an established artist in Buenos Aires several years before the group was formed. His first solo exhibition, held in 1940 at the Teatro del Pueblo, included oil paintings and pastels featuring a mélange of surreal symbols and figures such as mannequins, musical instruments, mechanical appliances, and birds, but Espinosa’s artistic trajectory changed dramatically in 1943. That year, he visited Montevideo and met Joaquín Torres-García, who inscribed a copy of his book La ciudad sin nombre for him. Within a year, Espinosa had moved away from his surrealist compositions, and he began making paintings and works on paper marked by spare outlines of recognizable shapes.

In the early 1940s, Espinosa befriended artist, designer, and theorist Tomás Maldonado. Tapping into international concrete art movements as well as the non-representational movements centered in Buenos Aires, Espinosa and Maldonado, along with Alfredo Hlito and Raúl Lozza, founded the Asociación Arte Concreto-Invención (AACI) in 1945. Their work broke entirely from figurative traditions, focusing instead upon geometry and color studies. “The artistic era of the representational fiction has reached its end,” they proclaimed in a 1946 manifesto. After the group dissolved in 1949, Espinosa traveled often to Europe, where he met members of the De Stijl movement and artists in the Italian groups Movimento di Arte Concreta and Forma. In the 1960s and 1970s, Espinosa arranged squares and circles in serial patterns in his paintings and drawings. These variations investigated subtle effects of space and color and explored optical sensations of depth and movement. In these works, Espinosa embraced an idea proposed by Swiss architect Max Bill, who believed that the practice of creating variations upon a theme could offer a systematic and precise understanding of a particular form.

Music and literature were important subjects for Espinosa throughout his career, but in the late 1960s and 1970s, he titled several of his works in homage to specific composers and writers. Espinosa’s painting titled Gnossiennes III (1973) takes its title from a series of piano pieces by Erik Satie, who coined the term “gnossienne” to describe a new musical form that broke from established structures such as a piano prelude or sonata. Espinosa was fascinated by the rhythmic simplicity and poetic nature of Satie’s work. In other paintings, Espinosa makes more oblique references; for a 1977 exhibition, he titled his paintings after James Joyce’s novel Ulysses. For example, Dublin, 16 de junio de 1904 (1977) refers to the day the novel takes place. Espinosa was drawn to Joyce’s use of language, which resonated with the artist’s method of structuring his complex compositions around seemingly simple pictorial elements.

Espinosa's works have been displayed in numerous important exhibitions, including: Surface and Subtext: Latin American Geometric Abstraction, Blanton Museum of Art, The University of Texas at Austin, Texas, USA (2002); Argentine Abstract Art, Fundación PROA, Buenos Aires, Argentina and Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Bergamo (GAMeC), Italy (2002); Projection and Dynamism: Six Argentine Painters, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, France (1973); Form and Space, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo (MAC), Santiago, Chile (1962); Manuel Espinosa: Geometría en Movimiento, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Buenos Aires (MACBA), Argentina (2013); Latinoamérica: volver al future, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Buenos Aires (MACBA), Argentina (2019); Manuel Espinosa, Luz, Color y Movimiento, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Salta (MAC), Argentina and Museo Emilio Caraffa (MEC), Córdoba, Argentina (2015); Geo-metries, Latin American Geometric Abstraction in the Cisneros Collection, Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires (MALBA), Argentina (2003); Contemporary Argentine Art, Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City, Mexico (1974); When Geometry…2. Tribute to Piet Mondrian, Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires (MAMBA), Argentina (1989); Manuel Espinosa: Anthology on Paper, Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires (MAMBA), Argentina (2003); The Illusive Eye, El Museo del Barrio, New York City, New York, USA (2016); Eight Constructive Artists, Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Buenos Aires, Argentina (1963); 24 Argentine Artists, Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Buenos Aires, Argentina (1970); Current Argentine Painting, Two Trends: Geometry – Surrealism, Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Buenos Aires, Argentina (1976); Real/Virtual, Arte Cinético argentino de los años sesenta, Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Buenos Aires, Argentina (2012); Art from Argentina 1920/1994, Museum of Modern Art (MoMa), Oxford, England, UK (1994); and Contemporary Argentine Art: The 13th International Art Exhibition, Tokyo Biennale ’80, Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, Japan and Municipal Museum of Art, Kyoto, Japan (1980).

Espinosa’s works are represented in several major collections including the Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois, USA; Blanton Museum of Art, The University of Texas at Austin, Texas, USA; Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros (CPPC), Caracas, Venezuela and New York City, New York, USA;Fondo Nacional de las Artes (FNA), Buenos Aires, Argentina; Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Buenos Aires (MACBA), Argentina; Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Caracas (MACC), Venezuela; Museo Moderno, Buenos Aires, Argentina; Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Buenos Aires, Argentina; The Museum of Art Rhode Island School of Design (RISD Museum), Providence, Rhode Island, USA; Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (MCA), Illinois, USA; and The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH), Texas, USA.

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Quote

"The only realist painting is, for me, the one that searches to affirm its material reality before anything else..."

Selected Solo Exhibitions

2021
Manuel Espinosa: a rhythm of chance and necessity, Galería María Calcaterra (MCMC), Buenos Aires, Argentina

2018
Manuel Espinosa, Black and White: Works on Paper from the 1970s, Stephen Friedman Gallery, London, UK
Manuel Espinosa, Stephen Friedman Gallery, London, UK

2015
Manuel Espinosa, Luz, Color y Movimiento, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo, Salta, Argetina; Museo Emilio Caraffa, Córdoba, Spain

2014
Manuel Espinosa: Light, Colour and Vibration, Stephen Friedman Gallery, London, UK

2013
Manuel Espinosa: Geometría en Movimiento, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Buenos Aires (MACBA), Argentina
Manuel Espinosa: Paintings and Works on Paper, 1960s and 1970s, Sicardi Gallery, Houston, TX, USA

2010
Manuel Espinosa: Drawings and Paintings, 1950s–1970s, Sicardi Gallery, Houston, TX, USA

2009
Espinosa, Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Neuquén, Argentina

2003
Manuel Espinosa: Anthology on Paper, Museo de Arte Moderno, Buenos Aires (MAM), Argentina

2001
Manuel Espinosa: Rosario Prize 2001, Museo Municipal de Bellas Artes, Rosario, Argentina

1981
Manuel Espinosa, Galería del Retiro, Buenos Aires, Argentina

1980
Manuel Espinosa, National Arts Center, Ottawa, Canada; Robson Square Media Centre, Vancouver, Canada

1979
Manuel Espinosa, Galería del Retiro, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Manuel Espinosa, Argentine Embassy, Montevideo, Uruguay

1977
Manuel Espinosa, The National Gallery of Art, Lagos, Nigeria
Manuel Espinosa, Acrylic Paintings, Galería Vermeer, Buenos Aires, Argentina

1975
Manuel Espinosa, Centro de Artes y Letras, Liga de Fomento, Punta del Este, Uruguay

1974
Manuel Espinosa, Paintings, Centro Venezolano-Argentino de Cooperación Cultural y Científico-Tecnológica, Caracas, Venezuela
Manuel Espinosa, Galería Carmen Waugh, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Manuel Espinosa, Galería Contemporánea, Montevideo, Uruguay

1972
Manuel Espinosa, Buenos Aires, Galería Carmen Waugh, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Oils by Manuel Espinosa, Galería Quinta Dimensión, Buenos Aires, Argentina

1971
Manuel Espinosa, Galería del Plata, Mar del Plata, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Manuel Espinosa, Paintings, Galería Austral, La Plata, Buenos Aires, Argentina

1970
Manuel Espinosa, Pyopen or 20 variations of the same theme, Galería Arte Nuevo, Buenos Aires, Argentina

1969
Manuel Espinosa, Paintings, Galería El Taller, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Manuel Espinosa, Galería Arte Nuevo, Buenos Aires, Argentina

1959
Espinosa, Galería Van Riel, Buenos Aires, Argentina

1940
Manuel O. Espinosa, Teatro del Pueblo, Buenos Aires, Argentina

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