The Franco era and Informalism
Under a dictatorship, young artists created a painting of sackcloth, sand and blackness that became Spain’s voice in the world.
After the Civil War, General Francisco Franco ruled Spain as a dictator for almost forty years. The early years were marked by poverty, repression and censorship. Many of the country’s finest artists and intellectuals lived in exile, in Mexico, Argentina or France. Official art was traditional and Catholic, and the state built monuments to its victory in the war. Picasso refused to return as long as Franco lived, whereas Dalí and Miró settled in Spain again. Culture became a field of both power and resistance.
Around 1950 a new generation began to break the isolation. In Barcelona Antoni Tàpies and his friends formed the group Dau al Set, and in Madrid the group El Paso was founded in 1957, with Antonio Saura and Manolo Millares. They painted abstractly, with thick matter, sand, sackcloth and black paint. This art is known as Informalism. It was closely related to French Art Informel and American Abstract Expressionism, but it also carried memories of Goya, the war and the Spanish soil.
Paradoxically, the regime used abstract art to present a modern image of Spain abroad. At the 1958 Venice Biennale Eduardo Chillida won the sculpture prize, and in 1960 the Museum of Modern Art in New York showed new Spanish art. At the same time, many of the artists criticised the dictatorship. During the 1960s tourism and the economy grew, and a new Pop Art and realism took shape. When Franco died in 1975, a lively and independent art world stood ready.