Lot 62: Manuel Pailós (Uruguayan 1918-2005)

Manuel Pailós (Uruguayan 1918-2005)
Untitled
signed 'Pailos' (lower left)
oil on canvas
41 1/8 x 41 1/8 in. (104.5 x 104.5 cm.)

Gift from the artist to a private collector.
Acquired from the above by the present owner.

We are grateful to Mrs. Cecilia de Torres for her assistance in confirming the authenticity of this work.

A disciple of Joaquín Torres García, Manuel Pailós, was born in Galicia, Spain, in 1918 but moved with his family to Montevideo, Uruguay at the age of two. The artist studied in El Círculo de Bellas Artes, alongside José Cuneo and Guillermo Laborde. In 1940, he met Joaquín Torres García and joined the Taller Torres García. His trajectory includes important exhibitions throughout the Americas, including the United States and also Europe in such institutions as Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Buenos Aires in 1989, and Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, 1991. His works are included in the permanent collections of the Museo Municipal de Artes Plásticas del Uruguay, Montevideo, Museo Xunta de Galicia, Spain, and other public institutions; as well, his work is part of numerous international private collections.

Pailós lyrical language, while remaining true to the tenets or ideals of the Taller Torres García, reflects the artist's predilection for a geometry that is fluid and organic. His compositions are expressed in a constructivism that is less rigid and open to figuration and abstraction. In this work, the figure of woman is part of the interlocking areas or geometric configuration yet her presence is not subordinate to the formal rigor of the constructivist ideal and indeed balances the entire composition. For Pailós, who like many twentieth-century artists, was intrigued with the endless possibilities of compositional structure through geometry--the human form never escaped unnoticed.