Manolo Millares

Manuel Millares Sall ( born January 17, 1926 in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria; † August 14, 1972 in Madrid, also Manolo Millares ) was a Spanish painter and self-taught artist who devoted himself to engraving.

Life and work

After Millares had developed in the forties an outgoing surrealism figurative painting, he turned to in the fifties, the informal art. From 1949 he devoted himself to abstract painting. In 1955 he moved to Madrid and began to paint in an aggressive informalistischen style. Together with Antonio Saura, he was from 1957 one of the heads of the artist group El Paso. During this time used Millares predominantly poor acting materials such as burlap, with him both material and color aspects overwrought. The colors are more and more reduced until they finally dissolve in the contrast of black and white.

His aesthetic is close to both the Spanish tradition, as well as existentialism and surrealism, which he connects.

Among the informal artists Millares takes account of its Canarian origin a special position. He was interested in anthropology. His work shows distinct traces of the influence of the indigenous Canarian culture that preceded Spanish. The structure of the leather and fabrics of the aboriginal inhabitants ( Guanches ) is comparable with the nature of Millares burlap.

His nephew, the architect and director Juan Millares Alonso, filmed in 2005 with the documentary ' cuadernos de contabilidad de Manolo Millares ' ( Manolo Millares ' accounts) the memories Millares ' which brought the artist himself in accounting journals on paper and published in 1998.