Alberto Datas
Alberto Datas (A Coruña, 1935 – Madrid, 2007) developed one of the most distinctive careers in Spanish painting during the second half of the 20th century. Associated with Expressionism and gestural abstraction, his work is characterized by a constant spirit of experimentation, a profound inde pendence from academic artistic languages, and a continuous search for new pictorial territories. A key reference for the artists of the Atlántica group, he contributed to the renewal of Galician painting from an interna tionalist perspective, becoming a pivotal figure for subsequent generations.
His painting emerged from a highly intense form of figuration and gradua lly evolved towards an expressive abstract language in which gesture, ma teriality, color, and large scale assumed an absolute prominence. Far from understanding abstraction as an end in itself, Datas conceived painting as a space of lived experience where the human condition, nature, and a critical reflection on the crisis of contemporary civilization converge. Influenced by American Abstract Expressionism, the work of Jackson Pollock and Arshile Gorky, as well as the aesthetics of Jean Dubuffet and the Cobra movement, he developed a distinctive poetics in which the energy of the brushstroke coexists with barely suggested figurative references, concealed beneath dense layers of matter and color.
Educated at the School of Arts and Crafts of A Coruña and at the Higher School of Fine Arts of San Fernando in Madrid, he furthered his studies thanks to a scholarship from the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Venice, where he studied alongside the muralist Bruno Saetti, and subse quently at the Academia Española de Bellas Artes de Roma. His intensive teaching career culminated in his appointment as Professor of Painting at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, where he exerted a significant influence on new generations of artists.
Throughout his career, he received numerous distinctions, including the Premio Nacional Fin de Carrera (1961), the Medalla de Oro Ciudad de La Coruña (1963), and the Medalla de Bronce de la IV Bienal de Alejandría (1965). His work has been exhibited in numerous solo and group exhibi tions in Spain and abroad, and is held in important public collections, in cluding the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, the Centro Galego de Arte Contemporánea, the Museo Patio Herreriano, the Museo Galego de Arte Contemporánea Carlos Maside, the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, and the Funda ción Coca-Cola, among others.
Alberto Datas. Entes III. 2006. Mixed technique on canvas. 130 x 97 cm
