Pedro Alvarez (1922-1997)


Galaxia - No.5 signed with the artist's initials 'PA' (lower left); signed, dated and titled 'Pedro Alvarez 1955, Galaxia - No.5' (on the reverse)oil on canvas31 1/4 x 23 1/2 in (79.4 x 59.7 cm)Painted in 1955
|The authenticity of this work has been confirmed by Lic. Roberto Cobas Amate.ProvenancePrivate collection, Madrid.The group known as Loz Diez Concretos (The Ten Concrete Artists) grew out of the upheavals in Cuba in the decade leading up to the overthrow of the Batista regime in 1959. Following the 1952 military coup, and as Havana was becoming an international city facing rapid urbanization, there were rising nationalist sentiments to which artists felt a need to respond. They strove to create a new visual language which could be equal to the political and social changes. Los Diez coalesced in 1959 in an exhibition at the Galería de Arte Color-Luz entitled 10 Pintores Concretos Exponen Pinturas y Dibujos (10 Concrete Painters Exhibit Paintings and Drawings). Although the group was only active until 1961, they were at the center of the political turmoil to which the country was exposed. Many of the artists, such as Pedro de Oráa, Wilfredo Aracay and Mario Carreno had traveled abroad, while Sandú Darié was in correspondence with Grupo Madí in Buenos Aires, and they were in close touch with the latest European and Latin American avant-garde movements and influences.Cuban Concretism grew from global inspirations. As Pedro de Oráa recalled in an interview with Lucas Zwirner "We didn't want to mimic anyone; we wanted inspiration and encouragement from countries like Belgium, Germany, France and Russia, where art was really flourishing. The work from those countries were our biggest source of inspiration. No one paints spontaneously... And if there is anything that we ever wanted, it was to contribute something to the already established world of Concrete abstraction" (quoted in Concrete Cuba: Cuban Geometric Abstraction from the 1950s (exhibition catalogue), David Zwirner, London and New York, p. 142).The following three works by Pedro Alvarez and Salvador Corratgé show the artists expressing their intellectual and political ideas in hard-edged and simple yet vibrant forms and colors.