August Puig
August Puig was born in 1929 in Barcelona, Spain.
August Puig exhibited his work for the first time in 1946 — before his success in winning the prize at the Exposición Internacional Unión Arte de Bilbao — in an exhibition in Els Blaus de Sarriá, along with the work of Juan Tort, Ponç, Boadella and the text from J.V. Foix. It was the first postwar exhibition of avant garde art. The exhibition provided an historic moment in Spanish art: the first totally abstract paintings ever produced by a Spanish artist. They were the work of seventeen-year-old August Puig.
Over fifty years later, and only after his death, Puig had finally begun to receive the recognition he should have earned as Spain’s pioneer abstract painter.
Shortly after the 1946 exhibition, the Institute Français announced its intention to award an art scholarship to a young Spanish artist to study in Paris, August Puig was named the winner. Although probably not intended at the time, this was the beginning of Puig’s exile. He moved to Paris, where he studied and worked for the next several years.
In the early Sixties, Puig returned to Barcelona, although one of the leading art critics, Juan Eduardo Cirlot, repeatedly referred to him as one of modern Spain’s major painter, he remained an outsider: a painter considered persona non grata by Franco’s ministry of culture, an artist who, in turn, refused to allow his work to be shown in any state-sponsored exhibition. He broke this boycott only once: when Sir John Rothenstein, the director of London’s famed Tate Gallery, went against the Spanish government’s recommendation and insisted that Puig’s work be included in the prestigious 1962 exhibition of modern Spanish painters in London.
After that success, Puig exhibited widely during the Sixties and Seventies, with major events in Germany, Switzerland, Sweden and The United States. It was only after Franco’s death that Puig agreed to be Spain’s sole representative in Brazil’s 1977 Bienal, with a major retrospective.
About this time Puig moved from Barcelona to the small village Monells in Ampurdan. Here Puig continued to produce a coherent, very personal body of work.
August Puig passed away in 1999.
1946
Exposicion Union Arte, Bilbao.
1947
Cercie Maillol Institute Francais Barcelona.
1948
Salons De Mai,Paris.
Galerie Maeght Paris.
1949
Colegio España, Barcelona.
1950
Galerie Messages Paris.
Monoicos Galerie Monaco.
1951
Galerie Artiste et Artisant Paris.
1953
Galerie Marbach Bern.
Galerie d Art Latin Stockholm.
1954
Konstföreningen Krognoshuset Lund.
Galley Avenue Göteborg.
1955
Frankfurter Kunstkabinett Frankfurt.
1958
Galerie Springer, Berlin.
Galerie Olaf Hudtwalker, Frankfurt.
1960
Galerie Hella Nebelung Dusseldorf.
1961
Galerie La Hune, Paris.
1962
Galerie” Im Erker” Saint Gallen.
Museum d Art Contemporani,Barcelona.
Tate Gallerie London.
1963
Museum de Belles Malaga.
1964
” STIERKAMPF” Francisco de Goya
Pablo Picasso-August Puig,Frankfurt
Konstverein.
British Institut, Barcelona.
1966
Homenaje a Picasso, Barcelona.
Recent Accessions Exhibition,University
of Massachussetts USA.
1967
Grand Prix International D Art Monaco.
1969
Museum De la Universitat de Mayagues,Puerto Rico.
1970
Märkisches Museum Der Stadt Witten,
Tyskland.
1974
Galeria Manuel Barbie. Barcelona.
1975
Museum d Art Contemporani, Barcelona.
1976
Fundation MIRO Barcelona.
1977
Biennal De Sau Paulo, Brasilien.
Fundation MIRO Barcelona.
Internationel Art Conteporani Köpenhamn.
1982
Museum Espanyol s Art Contemporani
Madrid.
1985
Ministeri De Cultura, Madrid.
1986
Bulowska Galleriet, Malmö.
Konstgården, Göteborg.
1987
Galeria Greca Barcelona.
Landskrona Museum,Sverige.
1989
Institute Fracais, Barcelona.
1990
Litografies ” Cosmofobias ” universitetet i London.
Museum de l Emporda Epoca de Paris.
1947-1953.
1993
Art Pallafrugell, Gerona Spanien.
Galleri Salvador Riera, Barcelona.
Institut Francaise,”Sardana Universal”
Santiago De Chile
Buenos Aires
Barcelona
Tokyo
New York
Melbourne
Atlanta
1995
Galleri Corum, Montpellier.
Galleri MDA
, Helsingborg.
1996
Museum de Art Reina,Sofia Madrid.
Travelling exhibition: Girona, Lleida, Bremen, Munich
Homage to Walter Benjamin “Ex Libris”
1997
Instituto Caervantes, Paris
“Corrida”: 69 Images to the Lorca poem “Llanto por la muerte de Ignacio Sanchez Mejias”
1998
Centre d´art Santa Monica, Barcelona
Dau al set – El Foc s´Escampa
Fundació Niebla, Casavellas, Girona
1999
“Artistes Internacionales” Fundacó Niebla, Casavells, Girona
“The End of the beginning” Galeria D´art Horizon, Colera, Girona
2000
Galleri MDA, Helsingborg, Sweden
Recordant AUGUST, The Paris years: 1947-53
Centre d´art Santa Monica, Barcelona
“HOMENATGE A AUGUST PUIG” (MAJOR RETROSPECTIVE)
Can Marc, Begur (Costa Brava)
“Homage to a friend”: AUGUST PUIG
Fonds d´art, Olot
Artistes Catalan (Exhibition planned for European tour)
2001
Gran Antologica, Museu de l´Empord´d, Figueres
2003
Galeria d´Art Arcadi Calzada, Olot
Galeria d´Art Maragall
Espai d´Art Jaume Pahissa, Palamos
Fundacion Malaga
2005
“Despues de la forma”, Canals-Galeria d´Art, Sant Cugat del Vallés