Antonio de Andrés-Gáyon (1961-2012) - Beine

Antonio de Andrés-Gayón (1961-2012), Beine, 2009.

Acrylic on hardboard, 78 x 40 cm. Back with wall mounting and numbering.

Provenance: From the artist’s estate, Berlin.

Condition: Good, age-appropriate condition. The illustrations are part of the condition description.

For the exhibition of the paintings "Beine" (Legs) in 2009, the following text was created by the artist:

Antonio de Andrés-Gayón; Munich, May 26, 2009
This exhibition is a fragment. It does not intend to grasp a totality of my work, just as the theme “Legs of women” does not represent the entire woman. Here I certainly do not mean to say that a woman consists only of legs.

Having established that a part is not the whole, the whole can be cited, I come to the description of the work: Because the female always lures, because drawing legs of women, because painting legs of women is very difficult. These are the reasons I present female legs to you.

Without any help (slides, projector, etc.) I draw from a live model. A woman stands before me in this pose. After sketching with pencil, I paint the oil colors directly onto the board with brushes. The following difficulties must be overcome:

The woman must stand credibly, bear her weight on her feet, not float somewhere in space. In the empty space of the painting she carries her weight with her legs; that must be made clear.
The proportion of the limbs, the length relative to the width of the thighs, shin and feet, the toes. Eternal variations on a constant theme. Depending on person, light and posture, everything is always new and different.
What color is the skin? Whether in shadow, in light, reflections, tension … from green, black, blue, yellow, red. Always the entire rainbow appears in the painting, only where and how much of the hue?

To you, the viewer, I want to ask: Do my legs live? Ultimately the guest does not have to be a cook to enjoy the meal. Yet it greatly enhances the pleasure: the formation (cultivation).

Biography
Antonio de Andrés-Gayón (1961–2012) was a Spanish sculptor and painter born in Madrid who studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich from 1985, under Olaf Metzel as a master student from the third semester. After studios in Munich, Cologne, and Hamburg, he lived and worked in Berlin since 2000.
The human figure stood at the center of his artistic work. Whether drawing, painting, or sculpture, Antonio de Andrés-Gayón explored the expressive power of the body with extraordinary precision and artisanal consistency. His works deal with proportion, movement, and the relationship between person and space. The artist himself expressed his artistic claim with the words: “My concept is quality.”
His figurative works combine classical sculpture and academic drawing with a contemporary visual language. In particular, his depictions of the human body are characterized by an intensive engagement with form, anatomy, and expression. Today, works by Antonio de Andrés-Gayón are represented on the international art market and are regularly traded through galleries and auctions.