Joan Hernández Pijuán (1931-2005) - Osaka

ABOUT THE ARTWORK

Litograph on Rives paper that is documented in (1991) Hernández Pijuan, Obra gráfica II (1982–1990). Bilbao Fine Arts Museum, Bilbao, p. 03. No. 148.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Joan Hernández Pijuan, Barcelona, 1931.

He trained at the Llotja School of Arts and Crafts and the School of Fine Arts in Barcelona. In 1957, he moved to Paris, where he studied engraving and lithography at the École de Beaux-Arts. Although his early work was close to gestural expressionism, he soon adopted a geometric figuration dominated by fields of color and the presence of solitary objects such as fruit, glasses, eggs, and scissors.

In the late 1980s, Hernández Pijuan returned to informalism, developing a style of painting that came to be characterized by the use of an exclusively black-and-white palette. With his atmospheric and austere work, the artist transforms painting into an exercise in spirituality and inner contemplation. He is also notable as an engraver, with his careful work on the grid and the serial element, also monochromatic.

Since his first solo exhibition at the Museu de Mataró in 1955, he exhibited in art spaces in Spain and internationally. Notable retrospectives dedicated to the artist include those at the Tecla Sala Cultural Center in L'Hospitalet de Llobregat (1992), the Reina Sofía Museum in Madrid (1993), MACBA in Barcelona (2003), and the Museum of Modern Art in Moscow (2011).

His work can be found in collections such as the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, the Guggenheim Museum in New York, the National Gallery in Montreal, the Museum of Modern Art in Buenos Aires, the Reina Sofía Museum in Madrid, and MACBA in Barcelona.