The Foundation’s main collection includes works from all of Eugenio Granell’s different periods. It consists of oil paintings, constructions, ready-mades, collages, drawings, watercolours, gouaches, temperas, photos and engravings.
Picture: Eugenio Granell, Madrid, 1997
From the beginning of his artistic work, Eugenio Granell was clearly interested in collecting. Thus, throughout his life he created an important collection of works by surrealist artists (many of whom were personal friends), ranging from established artists such as Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, Joan Miró, Roberto Matta, Esteban Francés, to more recent artists from a variety of places such as: Cruzeiro Seixas, Julián Calero Gómez, Karl-Otto Glotz, Yo Yoshitomé, Edouard Jaguer.
The result of Granell’s anthropological interest, which led to his collecting objects from the five continents. The collection reflects, in its pieces, the surrealist interest in the primitive, in man’s search for quality. It consists of masks, toys and objects from different places: Santo Domingo, Poland, USA, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Africa, Spain, Portugal.
This collection is the result of the legacy that the English surrealist artist, Philip West, donated to the museum following his premature death in 1997. This legacy consists of 200 works, mainly drawings, oil paintings, engravings, as well as an important library with more than 100 volumes about Surrealism. A British artist who moved to Zaragoza in 1983, he is considered by critics one of the most representative Anglo-Spanish surrealists. He himself defined his painting as a poetical search communicating on a level beyond words, on a more intuitive level that proposes the reencounter, the point of convergence between conscious life and the subconscious mind by means of analogy.
Amparo Segarra plastic artist, theater actress and inseparable companion of Eugenio Granell. She fully identifies with the surreal collage technique, which she uses to express her concerns.
In his pieces we observe, in a subtle humor key, social opinions and surreal thoughts. All wrapped up in a delicately balanced feminine aesthetic, sometimes harsh, in which the perfect fusion of the different cuts stands out, creating an illogical fantasy world, based on reality.
Amparo and Granell Collection. Joint work
Composed of a series of graphic works made jointly between Eugenio Granell and Amparo Segarra on the occasion of a fashion exhibition held at the University of Puerto Rico on March 26, 1950.
The art students of this university were going to make an end-of-year trip to Europe to visit different museums. Amparo and Granell create these graphic works in which Amparo suggests the type of clothing that the students should wear on visits, while Granell paints scenery for his cutouts. Collages and gouaches merge into a unique technique but without losing the plastic identity of each one.
They were the first collages of Amparo, thus initiating his artistic career. Most of his production was made in the 60s but continued practically until his death.
