LONDON.- 'Rediscovered Geniuses: Juan Antonio Guirado and Igor Gorsky’ at Red Eight Gallery in London’s historic Royal Exchange opens to the public today, 4th October, until 14th November, 2024. The exhibition features a curated selection of previously un-exhibited paintings from the Estates of Spanish Surrealist Juan Antonio Guirado and Greek Abstract Expressionist Igor Gorsky. London gallery Red Eight and New York City gallery Nina Churchill have teamed up for this transatlantic exhibition, and Catalina Guirado, daughter of the late Juan Antonio Guirado and CEO of the Guirado Estate, is in London from Los Angeles for the exhibition preview events. Red Eight Gallery, located in the heart of London’s art district, is proud to host this landmark event, where art enthusiasts and collectors will be able to experience Gorsky and Guirado’s work in an intimate and inspiring setting.


Installation shot of Juan Antonio Guirdao paintings at Red Eight Gallery ‘Rediscovered Geniuses’. Courtesy Red Eight Gallery.

Juan Antonio Guirado
Juan Antonio Guirado was a Spanish Surrealist artist who spent time in Australia and is considered Spain's leading master painter in the school of “Intrarealism”, and Igor Gorsky was a Greek Abstract Expressionist who moved to the USA and invented a unique pouring technique. Although Guirado and Gorsky never met, they were both Mediterraneans born in the same era, the politically volatile 1950s. Both artists, despite being overlooked in parts of their careers, created deeply introspective, visionary art that reflects an inner spiritual journey, combining abstraction with profound emotional and philosophical underpinnings.

Juan Antonio Guirado Espinosa was born in Los Villares (Jaen) in 1932 and his arts education began at the early age of 10 in Andalusia. At 18 he moved to Madrid to study portraiture at the San Fernando Academy, later travelling to Italy and France studying Italian Renaissance and French Impressionism.


Juan Antonio Guirado. Image: Courtesy Guirado Estate.

He became one of the most represented Spanish contemporary artists in museums and international collections that included King Hussein of Jordan, J.D. Salinger, and John Schlesinger, and by globally renowned museums including the National Museum Reina Sofia and the National Museum of Fine Arts in Valletta. He also received multiple awards including the gold medal at the El Grollo awards at the Venice Biennale in 1976 and was honoured at the Malta Art Biennial for his prolific body of work. At first he was associated with the Surrealist and Essentialism movement, exhibiting in Paris in 1978 alongside the most important Essentialist painters of the time, though in posterity he would consider himself closer to Intrarealism, a pictorial school with a great component of social consciousness and reflection on the world that surrounds the artist.


Igor Gorsky and Evita Myriam.

In 2010 only a month before his 78th birthday, Guirado passed away in the place of his birth, Andalusia.The Guirado Estate was created by his only daughter, the British model and television personality Catalina Guirado, following his death. Over the last decade she has worked exclusively in the art world returning the Andalusian Maestro’s name to the art world with a series of critically acclaimed exhibitions in Madrid, Miami (to launch Art Miami and Art Basel) and at his birth city of Jaén where he was exhibited alongside the whose who of Spanish painters including Miro, Tapies and Picasso and placed in the prestigious Cesario Rodriguez Aguellerez Foundation collection belonging to the University of Jaén. Now she returns Guirado to London, his first exhibition since 1981, with the prestigious Red Eight Gallery.

Red Eight Gallery and the Guirado Estate will present a curated selection of Juan Antonio Guirado paintings from his ‘VISIONS’ series, which have never been exhibited before. This will be the first exhibition of Guirado in the UK since the 1980s. Juan Antonio Guirado is in the collection of the Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid, and Dame Francois Tempra, Director of the Malta Fine Art Museum described him as “The 21st Century Painter.” Guirado’s ‘VISIONS’ series ranges from the 1990’s and 2000’s to before his death in 2010, are regarded by critics and the artist himself as perhaps his finest works. On first appearances, one would say that we are gazing at abstract kaleidoscopic images of colour, but if we stop and pay attention, we soon discover the miracle surrounding their intimacy. We, as humans, are full of something divine, yet are scared of looking inside ourselves. When we look into Guirado's paintings we find the magic that will transport us to a wonderful spiritual world and will make us reflect on our cosmic existence.

Igor Gorsky

Igor Gorsky’s path to becoming an Abstract Expressionist painter was extraordinary. Born George Vassilopoulos in Athens in 1936, and and grew up in a seaside suburb during the Great Depression. His father was an attorney, who forged passports for Jews and helped them escape from occupied Greece during World War II. His mother’s nickname was “the General” because of her strong character and ethics.

As a teenager he gained a reputation for being irreverent and controversial, once finding a discarded World War II revolver in the fields and taking it to school. Another time he attracted a crowd by arriving on horseback at a chic cafe.

Despite his rebellious teenage years, Gorsky was a brilliant student during the five-year program at the highly selective National Technical University of Athens, known as the Athens Polytechnic. After graduating, he travelled to Austin where, in 1963, he entered the four-year Masters program in Chemical Engineering at the University of Texas. He became an engineer and economics theorist. In 1971 he became a pioneering member of the think tank that created the Nasdaq securities exchange

He didn’t become an artist until 1988, when at the age of 52 he fell in love with Evita Myriam, a deeply spiritual Greek artist younger than him, who recognised his artistic talent. He soon developed an obsession with painting, working all night and developing a technique that involved boldly splashing and pouring car enamel onto canvas until he achieved the visual effects for which he was striving. “He moved like a ballet dancer, like Nureyev,” recalled Evita, “whom he had met when he was very young.”

Red Eight Gallery and Nina Churchill are honoured to represent the never-before-seen works of Igor Gorsky, a long-lost master whose revolutionary techniques with enamel paints have positioned him as one of the Greats in abstract art. Gorsky’s work, celebrated for its explosive bursts of colour and vibrant energy, will be available for purchase for the first time at Red Eight Gallery during the exclusive exhibition, Rediscovered Geniuses. An epiphany led Igor Gorsky to discard his career and become wholly dedicated to painting. He succeeded in creating a new technique and style of pure pouring. Some paintings drive toward the sublime as sacred shafts of light. Others emit the hallucinatory energy of his inner mind.

Red Eight Gallery CEO Julian Usher explains: “Juan Antonio Guirado and Igor Gorsky share a connection through their deep exploration of cosmic and metaphysical themes. Both artists developed unique styles later in life, with Guirado’s Intrarealism focusing on the spiritual link between humans and the universe, and Gorsky’s abstract works, influenced by pouring techniques, expressing inner turmoil and sublime energy. This exhibition presents the first opportunity to purchase never seen before works from either artist at the beginning of their journey of rediscovery.”

'Rediscovered Geniuses: Juan Antonio Guirado and Igor Gorsky’ is at the Red Eight Gallery, Royal Exchange, 9 Cornhill, London EC3V 3LR, from 4th October to 14th November, 2024.