MADRID.- Galería Elvira González opens on Thursday, September 11, the first exhibition of Fernando Mignoni in the gallery. Twenty works dated between 1969 and 1991 from his beginnings as a young painter interested in the human figure, his subsequent evolution towards structured compositions where nature and landscape replace the figure, to his latest works: abstract, constructivist and denoting interest in space. The exhibition coincides with Apertura Madrid Gallery Weekend.
Fernando Mignoni (Madrid, 1929 - 2011) studied at the San Fernando School of Fine Arts, but considered himself a self-taught artist. With a tormented personality, he was a passionate painter and a great draftsman. Influenced by classical Italian paintings, especially by the italian artists of the Quattrocento, he inherited from his father, the Italian scenographer Fernando Mignoni Monticelli, a taste for color that he used as another form of expression. The paintings from the 1960s are solitary figures that denote a certain existential anguish and speak of a lonely and somber world.
After a few years without exhibiting, he makes a comeback in the 70s, replacing human figure with nature, painting abstract landscapes that resemble internal landscapes and reveal a great sensitivity.
In the 80’s he stands out for works of sensual forms, with large color stains reminiscent of Jean Arp’s collages and gradually deriving in formally structured paintings divided into color fields with vibrant brushstrokes. All his work denotes a dichotomy between hedonism and tragedy. Sometimes exultant colors and other times dull and somber. In his last canvases, there is always a flash of light or referen- ces to the firmament.
His interest in architecture and space led him to make three-dimensional works, paintings/sculptures without a base that work on their own. From the last stage of his life as an artist, there are many models for outdoor works that he did not carry out and that tell us of an artist who thinks of the outside world as a blank canvas on which to undertake his ideas.
He also wrote three books of poetry “Preguntas sin respuesta”, “Reflexiones de la Experiencia” and “La Plástica en el Poema” which were published in 2002.
Mignoni passed away in Madrid in 2011, leaving a lasting mark as an essential artist: painter, sculptor, gallery owner, thinker and key figure in the development of contemporary art in Spain. His work is part of numerous collections such as the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, the BBVA Collection or the Enaire Foundation, among others, being his career a reflection of the evolution of Spanish art in the 20th century.
