In the second half of the 20th century, a new generation of artists arrived to revolutionize the art world: the informalists. Great names such as Josep Guinovart, Antoni Tàpies or the artist Lluís Rey Polo are born from here, whose 2024 marks the centenary of his birth. He was one of the architects of the movement that broke the molds of art as it was known.
Informalism in Catalonia appears in the 50s and 60s as a transformative current, which seeks creative freedom and expression of art, in a context of Franco’s dictatorship in which Spain is immersed. An art that renounces compositional organization and everything that is rational elaboration, and that opts for works that do not represent anything, but rather plastic manifestations with their own value.
In this context, Lluís Rey Polo learns to paint, sculpt and portray. “Enthusiastic and curious, and he loved and admired his family, especially his grandchildren,” is how Itziar Rey, the artist’s daughter, defines him. Born in 1924, from a very young age he combined his love for mathematics and science with painting, where he trained in prestigious schools such as the Escola de Belles Arts de Sant Jordi in Barcelona.
It would not be until 1951 that he was offered a unique opportunity that would mark the course of his life: a scholarship from the Cercle Maillol to study in Paris. Josep Maria de Sucre, director of the center, seeing Rey Polo’s artistic gifts, did not hesitate to send him to the French capital, which was a reference for the avant-garde of art at the time. “Josep Maria de Sucre was the mentor of that entire generation of talent that he sent to Paris, because there they could cultivate themselves and grow as artists,” explains Itziar Rey.
Receiving a scholarship from Cercle Maillol means reaching the pinnacle in the training of an artist. Despite many obstacles in obtaining a passport to travel to France, Rey Polo is finally able to land in Paris. The air you breathe in the bohemian capital differs greatly from that in Spain. Artists can move, paint in the streets and express what they feel without repression.
There, Rey Polo coincides with future incentives of informalism such as Tàpies, Cuixart, Guinovart or Ràfols-Casamada. Although with some differences, the learning and help between everyone is reciprocal and, upon his return to Spain, he returns a new generation of cultivated artists who will revolutionize the artistic panorama.
On his return from Paris, Rey Polo was awarded the Joan Miró Prize for one of his drawings in 1963. Receiving this award is key for the painter, as it means the end of his training at the academy and the beginning of his career. artistic.
He will be part of the 5th form painting group in the 60s along with José María Kaydeda and Albert Coma Estadella, and the 3 més 1 punts de vista group, accompanied by Albert Casals and the Pujol Grau brothers.
He will participate on different occasions in the May Salons, an event that will allow him to exhibit and obtain international recognition for his works. This will be how many of his paintings will be exhibited in museums around the world, from Amsterdam to New York.
Rey Polo’s painting is part of the new trend of informalism of the second avant-garde of the mid-20th century. His canvases are mixed media on fabric or paper and materials, where the artist mixes watercolor with other elements such as stones or metals, producing chemical reactions, which are then reflected in the final composition of his works.
The process of creating a fresco is hard work. There is a prior study of proportions, color, material and structure of the canvas. “One of these days we’re going to fly away,” joked Itziar Rey, Rey Polo’s daughter, referring to when her father experimented in his paintings with elements such as air or water, which sometimes produced unpredictable chemical reactions.
One of his best-known paintings is the diptych Obstacles, from 1997, witness to the evolution of Rey Polo’s artistic work. It is not an informal painting by definition, since we can decipher the message of the work: two people in an obstacle course. This indicates the stylization of the painting of the last years of his life.
Rey Polo’s embroidered sculpture also responds to a striking and peculiar style, influenced by the informalism of his paintings. Evidence of this is the work Fecunditat, which is located in the Parc d’Escultures of FC Barcelona. Designed as a fountain, its initial location was in an old lock factory in Viladecans. When it closed, FC Barcelona offered Rey Polo the possibility of relocating his work to the La Masia sculpture park, which he was building in Sant Joan Despí.
Thus, he accepted, but with the requirement that it be placed in a lake, since it was a fountain, but the monument was placed in the middle of a plain of grass. Water never again emanated from the sculpture.
Rey Polo had the opportunity to demonstrate his skills in geometry by participating in the Cala Morell urbanization project, in Menorca. Streetlights, lamps, the sets of tiles used to channel water from the roofs, the clay jars used as water tanks or the descending snail with which the handrails of the stairs end are examples of architecture with the personal stamp of King Pole that we see today in this urbanization.
For Rey Polo it was essential that the houses were in harmony with the landscape and that they were integrated into it, not the other way around. He studied the terrain and all its characteristics: orientation, vegetation, topography…
He took note of which trees had to be saved, which rocks he should not touch, exposure to air currents or solar radiation. An architecture of movement, based on the union between art and design and the fusion between architecture, sculpture and painting in one.
This 2024 marks the centenary of the birth of Lluís Rey Polo. For this reason, the artist’s grandson, Aimone Angelini-Rota, has managed to schedule an exhibition in the month of April at the Museu de L’Hospitalet, which will last until September.
Various conferences are planned for the opening of the exhibition, with the hope of turning it into a traveling exhibition throughout different parts of Spain and Europe. Aimone also says that they have contacted the Center Pompidou in Paris, as it has shown great interest in the exhibition of Rey Polo’s works.
Another project that is on the table is the publication of a book that includes the biography and all of Rey Polo’s work, based on the text Rey Polo, which Antonio Leyva wrote about the artist in 1996.
The family continues searching through boxes of files and contacting various media outlets that may have information about Rey Polo.
Itziar Rey and Aimone Angelini-Rota, the artist’s mother and grandson, hope that this year will be “fruitful” and that they will be able to show Rey Polo’s legacy, of which they are very proud.
