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Campus News
Lithographs by major Spanish artist on exhibt at Georgia Museum of Art
By Bonnie Ramsey
buramsey@uga.edu
Lithographic prints by one of Spain’s major living artists, Alvar Suñol, are on display at the Georgia Museum of Art through
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| Alvar’s Earth, from the suite Les Elements de la Nature, is one of the lithographs in the exhibition at the Georgia Museum of Art. |
Oct. 21. Betty Jean Craige, director of UGA’s Center for Humanities and Arts, served as guest curator of the exhibition.
The museum is open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday; 10 a.m.-9 p.m. Wednesday; and 1-5 p.m. Sunday.
“Alvar,” as he is known in the art world, commemorates his Catalan heritage with images of life in rural villages. His lithography has won worldwide acclaim for the multiple colors and textures, embossing, and watercolor remarks.
Alvar studied in Paris during the 1960s and then returned to Barcelona, where he settled in the ancient town of Tiana on the city’s outskirts, not far from where he was born. There he has lived for the past 30 years, mastering lithography, oil painting, watercolor, gouache, drawing, engraving, sculpture and ceramics. His art expresses his appreciation of the values and habits of simple people, values and habits he considers universal--romantic and familial love, talk over food and wine, nostalgia, the pleasures of the senses, the joy brought by music and the other arts. Recurrent themes in his work include flowers, doves, apples, watermelons, checkered floors and tablecloths, musical instruments, and Spanish lace, all icons for Alvar of Mediterranean life.
It is in lithography, perhaps, that Alvar has distinguished himself most clearly from other artists of his time, because of his physical involvement in every step of the lithograph’s production and because of the complexity of the lithographic image.
“At once artist and artisan, Alvar works directly on the zinc plate when creating his images, simultaneously engaging his imagination, his artistic skills, and his knowledge of the mechanical process,” says Craige. “If a lithograph has 14 colors, he will have taken the paper through the press 14 times and will have spent two or three weeks in the piece’s creation.”
The exhibition at the Georgia Museum of Art features lithographs representative of three decades of Alvar’s work.
On Sept. 21 at 5:30 p.m., Craige will give a free public talk about Alvar’s lithographs in the auditorium at the museum. |
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