PINTURAS SURREALISTAS 1926-1935

Juan José Luis González Bernal (Zaragoza, 1908 – La Malmaison, Paris, 1939), surrealist painter and graphic designer, was one of the youngest members of the École de Paris, the city where he lived during the 1930s, and “the most significant figure of the Zaragoza surrealist circle,” according to Juan Manuel Bonet (Dictionary of the Avant-Gardes in Spain). His early death in exile at the age of 31, as well as his collaboration with the Republic, silenced his importance in Spain. The Cortes of Aragon, sponsors of this exhibition, hold the largest collection of his work thanks to the legacy of Dr. Julián Vizcaíno, the artist’s friend and personal physician.

Self-taught, he developed a highly active artistic career linked to both Spanish and French avant-gardes. His painting moved rapidly through different stages, from Post-Cubism to Surrealism, a movement with which he fully identified and in which his “soft forms” and allegorical imagery stand out. His mastery of drawing is evident in his portraits and in the gouache technique, which he handled with great skill.

He began his career in his hometown, Zaragoza, one of the Spanish centres of the avant-garde around the figure of Tomás Seral y Casas and the magazine Noreste. He travelled to Barcelona and Paris, where he connected with the avant-garde and met Spanish artists living there. In 1930, at the age of 22, he held his first solo exhibition at the Rincón de Goya in Zaragoza and took part in the Salon des Surindépendants in Paris. The following year, in 1931, he exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in Madrid, and the Spanish State acquired one of his works, now held at the Museo Nacional Reina Sofía. In 1934, he held his first solo exhibition in Paris at the Jacques Bonjean Gallery. He worked as an illustrator and designer for the Cenit publishing house and other prestigious publishers. In 1935, he participated alongside Picasso, Dalí, Gargallo, Julio González, Miró and others in an avant-garde painting exhibition organised by the Republican Government at the Spanish College in Paris. A victim of tuberculosis, he died in Paris.

Ricardo Centellas