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1941 – 2023

Life

Eduard Arranz-Bravo’s biography organises itself around the places where he worked. Each studio is a different way of painting, and the breaks fall where they really fell: not every ten years to make the numbers round.

Eduard Arranz-Bravo painting in the Vallvidrera studio, 2016: bent over the lower part of a large canvas — red ribbons on a white ground — following the black line with a fine brush. Red scarf at his neck; behind him, the concrete wall and works leaning against it.
In the Vallvidrera studio, 2016.

1954 – 1966 · Barcelona

The formation

The inventory holds work from 1954 onwards: still lifes, portraits and street scenes of academic facture, painted before he turned sixteen. Fine art at Sant Jordi from 1959, and a trip to Paris in 1958.

The Fundació documents, after Paris, a stretch of abstract painting of which the public selection does not yet show a single work. Friendship with Gerard Sala, Robert Llimós and Rafael Bartolozzi; the physicist Miquel Masriera introduces him and writes his catalogue text; first solo show at the Club Universitari. In 1966, the exhibition «Noves expressions» marks the turning point.

A whitewashed courtyard, 1964. Seated before canvases of the early figurative period: female figures leaning against the wall. Black and white photograph.
With work from the early years, 1964.
Walking across sandy ground with a camera at his neck; in the distance, a sloping city and a cathedral bell tower. Place unidentified. Black and white photograph.
In the early years. The archive has not identified the place.
In a studio, seated sideways on a bentwood chair, cigarette in hand; canvases leaning and a work table behind. Black and white photograph.
In a studio, in the early years. Date and place unconfirmed.

1967 – 1972 · Vallvidrera, with Bartolozzi

The turn

In 1967 he changes radically. Critics coin «new figuration», a label he detested and rejected every time it was put to him.

The Estrada Saladrich Biennial and the Biennial in 1967, the Ynglada-Guillot drawing prize in 1968. He moves to Vallvidrera, where he shares a studio with Rafael Bartolozzi. The period culminates in the Tipel factory.

Galeria Ivan Spence, Ibiza, 1967. Standing under a whitewashed arch before a painting of pale forms; Francesc Parcerisas seated in the shade. Coarse-grained black and white photograph.
With Francesc Parcerisas at the Galeria Ivan Spence, Ibiza, 1967.

1972 – 1985 · Vespella de Gaià, Tarragona

The Bartolozzi decade

Ten years of four-handed work: exhibitions, murals, painted buildings, design and actions. A hotel in Magaluf in 1973, the façade of the Centre Internacional de Fotografia in Barcelona in 1978, Camilo José Cela’s house in Mallorca in 1979.

«Mides universals», seventy works at the Saló del Tinell, in 1979. The Venice Biennale, thirty-ninth edition, in 1980.

A portrait from the seventies: long hair, thick moustache, light-framed glasses. Colour photograph.
In the nineteen-seventies.
A room with a glass wall onto a garden with an olive tree, probably in Tarragona. On a platform, a large-format painting: a cobbled street in perspective and hands across the upper part. He leans against the wall. Black and white photograph.
In the nineteen-seventies, probably in Tarragona.
«Mides universals», 1979. Standing in a white room with skylights, in a red and yellow knitted waistcoat; against the walls, stepped rows of empty stretchers. On the floor, a black dog. Colour photograph.
«Mides universals», 1979.

1985 – 1991 · Cadaqués

The former sardine factory

A studio in the former sardine factory, converted by Lanfranco Bombelli. The lithographic series «La casa», between 1986 and 1988.

Retrospectives at the Palau Robert and the Museum of Modern Art in São Paulo, both in 1989. In 1992, the Paço Imperial in Rio de Janeiro — where, of Spaniards, only Picasso and Miró had shown before — and the Catalan Pavilion at the Seville Expo.

The Cadaqués studio, 1986: a tall wooden-beamed room converted by Lanfranco Bombelli. Seen from behind, at the easel; to the left, a large work with an anchor; framed portraits on the floor. Black and white photograph.
The Cadaqués studio, 1986.
Examining a small bronze sculpture at close range, a pencil tucked through the arm of his glasses. Black and white photograph.
Between the nineteen-eighties and nineties.

1991 – 2013 · Vallvidrera, the house-studio

The return

He returns to Vallvidrera, to the house-studio. «Fe», at the Reina Sofía, between 1997 and 1998. First exhibition at Franklin Bowles, New York, in 1998: the beginning of a twenty-five-year relationship.

The series «Elements» and «Latituds», in aid of victims of terrorism, in 2002 and 2003. Work with Ferran Adrià. In 2009 the Fundació Arranz-Bravo is created and opens to the public.

A white-walled room with a rectangular skylight. Standing, arms folded, beside a large canvas mounted on a trolley; red and gold work leaning to the right.
In the studio, with work from those years.
With Richard Hamilton: Hamilton talking, he listening with a hand at his chin and the red scarf at his neck. Colour photograph, close up.
With Richard Hamilton.

2013 – 2023 · Vallvidrera, the new studio

The late work

The Garcés · De Seta · Bonet building is completed in 2013. The work of these ten years is made under light from above, without views, among exposed concrete, and in formats of two metres by two and larger.

Shanghai and Moscow in 2014, the Instituto Cervantes in Moscow in 2016. The hull of the cruise ship «Norwegian Encore» in 2019. Restoration of the Tipel between 2019 and 2020. He dictates his memoirs between 2020 and 2023.

A portrait from the last years in Vallvidrera: the face resting on his forearm, white beard. Black and white photograph, very close.
In Vallvidrera, in the last years.
The painting room of the new studio seen from the floor: four sloping concrete planes rise to a glass skylight, the only way light enters. Below, someone sits with their back turned at a work table, surrounded by canvases.
The work of these ten years was made beneath this. The studio

The four centres

From 1980 onwards the fragmented style gives way to a looser brushstroke and to work full of colour, red above all. Critics identify in it four anatomical centres he painted obsessively: the head, the heart, the eyes and the hands.

The Vallvidrera studio · The catalogue · The Fundació Arranz-Bravo