Dario Villalba (1939-2018) - S/T

Darío Villalba (San Sebastián, 1939 - Madrid, 2018). Original graphic work from 1972, artist's proof. Signed and dated in pencil “Darío Villalba 72” at the bottom right, and annotated “P/A” at the bottom left.

Technique: color screen print on paper. Sheet 64 x 59 cm.

A human silhouette in profile, drawn with a continuous black line, serves as a container for black-and-white photographic cutouts: young men with naked torsos, a row of four police officers with dark glasses and arms crossed, fragments of muscular anatomy and a flesh-colored hand that exits the contour. A fluorescent orange line runs vertically down the body and another crosses it at waist height. Between the photographs run lines of handwritten text, repeated. It is the procedure of the Encapsulated series, the series that Villalba began in 1964: the human figure cut out, isolated and displayed as a specimen.

Villalba introduced photography into painting before almost anyone in Spain, and this print makes that clear. He represented Spain at the XXXV Biennale di Venezia (Venice Biennale) (1970), won the International Painting Prize at the XII Biennial of São Paulo (1973) and the National Prize for Plastic Arts (1983). For his graphic work he received the International Jury Prize at the XIII Biennial of Graphic Art in Ljubljana (1979). He was a titular academician of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando since 2002. Between 1972 and 1978 he regularly exhibited at Madrid’s Vandrés Gallery; this print is from that same year.

Condition: Good for its age. No tears or visible creases.

Provenance: private collection, Madrid.