JOAN HERNÁNDEZ PIJUAN (Barcelona, 1931 - 2005). Untitled, 1956. Oil on paper adhered to board. Signed, dated and dedicated in the upper left corner. Measurements: 50 x 64 cm; 81 x 97 cm (frame). This oil on paper belongs to an early stage of the artist in which he was interested in formal simplification, influenced by both avant-garde expressionism and Romanesque art. Joan Hernández Pijuan began his training in Barcelona, attending the La Lonja and Sant Jordi Schools of Fine Arts, before completing his studies at the School of Fine Arts in Paris. Appointed professor at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Barcelona in 1981, Hernández Pijuan occupies a unique position among Spanish artists of recent decades. The strength of his creative individuality places him on the fringes of the successive dominant trends and fashions, but does not prevent us from recognising in his work a profound identification with the aesthetic concerns of his time. Hernández Pijuan began his career practising a tragic expressionism with a strong social charge, and at this time he formed, together with the other members of the Sílex Group, the so-called Barcelona School. In the seventies he simplified his expression to the point of adopting geometric figuration, a style he left behind in the following decade to focus on informalism. In fact, interest in and fascination with this painter's career continues to be as strong as ever, and he is the subject of new exhibitions and public displays of his work. During his lifetime he had solo exhibitions in several Spanish cities as well as in Zurich, Milan, Johannesburg, Cologne, Geneva, New York, Paris and Osaka, among other cities around the world, and in 2003 he was the subject of a major retrospective exhibition at the MACBA in Barcelona, which was subsequently shown at the Musée d'Art et Histoire de Neuchatel (France), the Konsthalle de Malmö (Sweden) and the Galleria Comunale d'Arte Moderna in Bologna (Italy). Even after his death his work has continued to be shown internationally, as evidenced by the exhibitions dedicated to his work held at the Flowers Gallery in London (2006), the Cervantes Institutes in New York, Chicago and Lisbon (2007), the Museo de Arte Abstracto Español in Cuenca (2008), the Andres Thalmann Gallery in Zurich (2009), the Baukunst in Cologne (2010), the Altana Kulturstiftung in Bad Homburg (Germany, 2011) and the Museum of Modern Art in Moscow (2012), among many others. Hernández Pijuan was dean of the Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of Barcelona, and in 2000 he was appointed a member of the Real Academia de San Fernando in Madrid. In 1981 he received the Premio Nacional de Artes Plásticas, in 1985 the Cruz de Sant Jordi and, in 2004, the City of Barcelona Prize. He was also awarded the Prize of the Directorate General of Fine Arts at the National Exhibition in Alicante in 1957, the First Prize for Painting "Peintres Residents" in Paris (1958), the "Malibor" Prize at the Ljubljana Biennial of Engraving (1965), the International Biennial of Engraving in Krakow (1966) and the "Vijesnik u Srijedu" editorial prize in Zagreb (1970). Hernández Pijuán is represented at the MACBA, the Museum of Spanish Abstract Art in Cuenca, the Reina Sofía in Madrid, the Patio Herreriano Museum in Valladolid and the Basque Museum of Contemporary Art, as well as in foreign centres such as the Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Liaunig (Austria), the Helsinki Museum of Contemporary Art in Helsinki, the Helsinki Museum of Fine Arts in Finland, the Helsinki Museum of Contemporary Art in Finland, the Helsinki Museum of Fine Arts in Finland and the Helsinki Museum of Contemporary Art in Finland, those of Contemporary Art in Helsinki and Luxembourg, the Kulturstiftung in Bad Homburg (Austria), the Yamaguchi Gallery in Osaka (Japan), the Palace of Fine Arts in Brussels, the National Gallery in Montreal, the Museum of Modern Art in Buenos Aires and the Sztuki Museum in Lodz (Poland).