Born 1926 Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Canary Islands

Died 1972 Madrid, Spain

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Spanish artist and leading proponent of Art Informel, the European counterpart to Abstract Expressionism. 

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Living in Gran Canaria until the age of 27, Millares was largely self-taught as an artist, initially influenced by Surrealism and the pre-history of the Canary Islands, particularly the rituals and symbols of the indigenous inhabitants, the Guanches.

 

In 1953, he moved to Madrid and became an abstract painter and soon a leading member of the avant-garde. In 1957, Millares along with Antonio Saura, Rafael Canogar, Luis Feito and Manuel Rivera founded the group El Paso (The Step) which advocated political engagement and formal experimentation, and which helped propagate avant-garde ideals in Spain under the repressive Franco regime.
 

By the early 1960s, Millares attained an international reputation being exhibited at the Bienal de São Paulo (1957); the Venice Biennale (1958) and the Carnegie International in Pittsburgh (1964) and in solo shows at Galerie Daniel Cordier, Paris (1960) and Pierre Matisse Gallery, New York (1960).

 

Manolo Millares was working in an era when society was still struggling to come to terms with the horrors of the Spanish Civil War and the Second World War. His torn, cut and crudely sewn together burlap works and his gestural paintwork in predominantly black are often interpreted as expressions of existential angst during this period.

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