Paintings 1983-1994. Xavier Grau
Galería Miguel Marcos is pleased to present the exhibition by Xavier Grau, Pinturas 1983–1994, featuring a carefully curated selection created during one of the artist’s most significant periods.
This exhibition not only explores a key decade in Xavier Grau’s career (Barcelona 1951–2020), but also celebrates the long and successful relationship between the artist and Miguel Marcos Gallery.
Since 1983, the gallery has consistently supported his artistic development, offering permanent support for the development of his work through multiple exhibitions at its locations in Zaragoza, Madrid, and Barcelona, as well as collaborations in important institutional exhibitions, such as Xavier Grau, Pintures 1981–1996, curated by Enrique Juncosa at the Centre d’Art Santa Mònica in Barcelona in 1997, and Celebración de la pintura, curated by Juan Manuel Bonet at the Monastery of Veruela in Zaragoza in 2008.
Grau’s painting is closely linked to the expressions of the New York School, and in particular to Willem de Kooning and Philip Guston, offering a pictorial language that, at first sight, reveals a direct and spontaneous work, unhindered, articulating all spaces and volumes through gestures and a free and unconstrained chromaticism.
The driving force behind El Grupo Trama, formed by Grau himself, José Manuel Broto, Javier Rubio, Gonzalo Tena, and the writer Federico Jiménez Losantos, he is one of the leading Spanish exponents of Abstract Expressionism. Technically, this exhibition reveals a desire to delve deeper into the succession and amalgamation of layers, typical of his works, through superpositions of transparencies, nuances, and blurred glazes that create the unique mystery of a supposed chaos and excess, creating at the end divergent tensions.
His work is part of museums and public collections such as the “La Caixa” Contemporary Art Collection (Barcelona), MACBA, the Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (Barcelona), MNCARS, the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (Madrid), and the Banco Sabadell Art Collection, among many others.
In the current context, revisiting these paintings means returning to a vibrant pictorial language, full of tension, color, and expressive freedom. The exhibition underscores the relevance of a work that defies time and maintains its formal and emotional intact power.
