Cuixart, Modest

MODEST CUIXART'S BIOGRAPHY

Barcelona, 1925 - 2007

Modest Cuixart began studying medicine in 1944, but abandoned this career two years later to devote himself fully to painting. In 1948, he founded the magazine Dau al Set together with Joan Brossa, Joan Ponç, Antoni Tàpies, Arnau Puig and Joan-Josep Tharrats. This group, from a protestant and avant-garde position, shook the Spanish post-war art scene.

In 1949, Cuixart met Joan Miró and exhibited with him, Ponç and Tàpies at the Institut Français. That same year he received a grant to travel to Paris, where he moved in 1950, accompanied by his cousin Antoni Tàpies. In Paris, Cuixart turned towards Informalisme Matèric, marking a change from Dau al Set's Magicist approach.

In 1958, Cuixart received the Torres García Prize and was invited to the XXIX Venice Biennial. His international career was consolidated in 1959 when he won the First International Painting Prize at the V Biennial of Sao Paulo, and when he received the Abstract Painting Prize in Lausanne. From then on, he participated in relevant international exhibitions, such as Documenta in Kassel and Treize peintres espagnols at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris.

In the 1960s-61, Cuixart was selected for exhibitions of avant-garde art at the Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Tate Gallery in London and the MOMA in Washington, as well as in various galleries in Europe, the United States, Japan and the Middle East. In 1963, he presented an exhibition at the Guggenheim and at Unesco headquarters, as well as participating in a group show in Paris with artists such as Appel, Ernst, Fautrier, Giacometti, Rauschenberg, Tobey, Miró and Picasso.

In the mid-1960s, Cuixart began a period of rupture with Informalism, with signs of a return to figuration in a cycle of erotic-magical themes that fused graphics and matter.

In 1972, he was guest of honor at the XIII Biennial of Sao Paulo, and in 1975 the Dau al Set gallery organized an anthological exhibition of his work between 1945 and 1975. In 1983, he received the Creu de Sant Jordi from the Generalitat de Catalunya, and a year later, King Juan Carlos I awarded him the Encomienda de la Orden de Isabel la Católica.

Over the years, Cuixart continued to present anthological exhibitions around the world, including Kobe and Tokyo in 1988, and Barcelona in 1991. In 1995, he celebrated his 70th birthday with an exhibition at the Centro Cultural de la Villa in Madrid.

In 1998, the Cuixart Foundation was created in Palafrugell, and in 1999 he received the Gold Medal for Merit in Fine Arts from the Ministry of Culture. Modest Cuixart died in 2007, leaving an artistic legacy of great importance in the history of contemporary art.