Manuel Rivera, whose full name is Manuel Rivera Hernández, was a Spanish painter and sculptor. His early works, mostly portraits, were made in figurative art style which changed through the artist’s career to the abstract one. The main attribute of Rivera's late creations became metal mesh.
Background
Manuel Rivera was born on April 23, 1927 in Granada, Spain.
Rivera revealed his passion for painting since the early age. So, one of his first drawings became a bunch of lilacs made at school at the age of six. The result didn’t satisfy a young painter, and he perforated the picture with a great number of holes.
Rivera’s mother died soon after the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War when the boy was nine. This event had a great impact on his life and artistic career giving to his art some melancholic traits.
A fifteen-year-old, Manuel did his first trip to Madrid where he was impressed by the collections of the Prado Museum.
Education
Manuel Rivera received his first art lessons at the workshop of Martín Simón where he was sent by his father. While at the workshop, Rivera learned the sculptor craft working with wood and plaster. Soon, the young Manuel realized that he would like to become a painter.
So, to fulfil that goal, he entered the School of Arts and Crafts in his native Granada where he was taught by Joaquín Capulino and Gabriel Morcillo.
In 1945, Rivera pursued his artistic training at the Superior School of Fine Arts in Seville.
Career
Manuel Rivera started his career as a professor at his alma mater, the Superior School of Fine Arts in Seville in 1947. The same year, he took part at his debut group exhibition organized at the Press Association in Granada and presented as well his works at the First Hispano-American Biennial of Art in Madrid.
At the beginning of the 1950s, the artist worked on the murals for various churches, public areas and official institutions. In 1952, Rivera founded Abadía Azul Group in Madrid.
The next year, the artist was invited to participate at the International Course of Abstract Art organized by the Institute of Hispanic Culture in the Menéndez Pelayo International University. Somehow, this course became for the painter a point of departure to incorporate the abstract elements, such as wire mesh (first on wooden frames and then on aluminium ones), in his works. The artworks typical for this period was the series ‘Los Albaicines’.
In 1956, Rivera made his first trip to Paris where he got acquainted with the modern art of the time.
The first creations with mesh called Metamorphosis and dedicated to Franz Kafka appeared in 1956. The series was presented the next year at two Biennials, the São Paulo Biennial and the III Mediterranean Biennial and at the Ateneo de Madrid in 1959.
The year of 1957 was marked by the foundation of the El Paso artistic group, in which the artist took part along with Antonio Saura, Manolo Millares, Rafael Canogar, and Pablo Serrano. The Group published their manifesto and organized in April of the same year its first exhibition at the Bucholz Gallery in Madrid.
The following year, Rivera took part at the XXIX Venice Biennial which provided the artist with popularity and attention from critics. The collaboration with El Paso contributed to the artist’s international fame as well.
The first solo show of Manuel Rivera was organized in 1959 at the Ateneo de Madrid.
In the middle of the 1960s, the artist started his new series dubbed Mirrors. The same period, in 1965, Rivera exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and in other American cities as well as in Morocco and South Africa. He was a representative of Spain at the IV International Venice Biennial demonstrating his artworks in the individual room. Then, the artist participated at the Universal Exhibition in Brussels.
The next period of Rivera’s career began at the end of the 1960s when the artist became fascinated by the oriental art, created his Japanese papers series full of colours.
Two years later the beginning of the 1970s, the artist participated at the 4th International Festival of Painting Cagnes-sur-Mer which provided him with a gold palette award. In the mid-1970s, Rivera began to work on his new project named Mandala which represented the cosmic forms and instruments of meditation.
In 1985, Rivera collaborated with the playwright Antonio Gala and the musician Manolo Sanlúcar on El Testamento Andaluz. The painter created three paintings with important sights of Andalusian capitals. Then, Manuel Rivera presented to the public his Wounded and Broken Mirrors.
At the middle of the 1980s, the artist turned to sculpture.
Manuel Rivera experimented with various art forms till the end of his life. So, in 1994, he created the series of sculptures called Transparent and later Storzuelos.
Achievements
Manuel Rivera was a prolific artist whose masterpieces were recognized by various prestigious awards and prizes such as Gold Medal of Merit in the Fine Arts and Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters.
The artist is also well-known as one of the founders of El Paso Group which had a great influence on the development of the post-war art in Spain and contributed somehow to the introduction of the Informalism to the country.
During his life, the artist's creations were acquired by such museums as the Museum of Art and History in Geneva, Switzerland, the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, the museums of Basel, Lausanne, Goteborg and the German ones in Kaiserlauten and Mannheim.
Nowadays, Manuel Rivera’s heritage is preserved in many well-known galleries and museums, including Reina Sofía National Art Center Museum, the Juan March Foundation, the Prado National Museum.
