The Spanish artist Gustavo Torner, the multifaceted master of abstraction, died this Saturday at his home at 100 years of age, according to sources close to the painter. Creator, together with the artist Fernando Zóbel, of the Spanish Abstract Museum of Abstract Cuenca, Torner was one of the most representative Spanish artists of the second half of the 20th century.
His work is found in public and private collections, in museums, institutions and organizations or outdoors in places as emblematic as the Washington Congress Library, the Tate Gallery of London or in the so -called Cubos Plaza de los Cubos de Madrid. Born in 1925, the artist was a member of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando and Gold Medal to the Fine Arts.
The artist celebrated his centenary in his house in Cuenca two months ago surrounded by his family and closest friends, while foundations, museums, galleries and even the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando honored the painter, sculptor, recorder, designer, museographer and artistic advisor.
He was born in Cuenca, on July 13, 1925, and studied forest technical engineering in Madrid, when his teachers discovered his ability to draw, which led him to make botanical sheets for publication Spanish forest flora. After finishing his career in 1947, Torner was destined for Teruel, although he continued painting and exposing until, in 1962, the Tate Gallery of London acquired one of his works and exposes in the VI Biennial of Venice, where he met the painter Fernando Zóbel. Both speak of founding the future Spanish abstract art museum, which opened in 1966 in the houses hanging from Cuenca and that gathered around a group of artists such as Gerardo Rueda, Antonio Lorenzo, Rafael Canogar, Manuel Millares or Martín Chirino, members of what was known as “The Cuenca Group”, although Torner himself said that “the group of the group has been said. of friends without more ”.
In the sixties, painting and sculpture combined. From this period there are several monumental achievements exhibited in Madrid, including the Plaza-Sultura, a source inspired by the writer Jorge Luis Borges, on Serrano street; The righteousness of thingsin Carabanchel, or Reflectionsthe famous waterfall of metal cubes in the so -called Cubos Plaza de Madrid. In Cuenca he made and participated in the General Urban Plan of that city.
Polifacetic, Torner also dedicated himself to interior design, to the architectural decoration, to the theatrical scene and the design of museums and exhibitions leaving his mark on the design of the Diocesan Museum of the Cathedral of Cuenca, of the Garden of Sculptures of the Juan March Foundation, in Madrid; The Loewe branch in New York or the stained glass windows for the main chapel of the Cathedral of Cuenca. Artistic Advisor of the Juan March Foundation for 30 years, Torner organized and created the design of exhibitions such as Arte’73, an anthological exhibition of contemporary Spanish art with which the Foundation officially initiated its cultural activities in Madrid in 1975; The exhibition Goya: Caprichos-Desastres-Tauromaquia-Disparates (1979) or those that introduced the Madrid to artists such as Francis Bacon, Mark Rothko or Andy Warhol.
Assiduous collaborator of the Prado Museum, in 1982 he began to be part of the new room restructuring team. He also performed scenographies and figurines, such as those of the opera The poetwith Placido Domingo, at the Teatro de la Zarzuela in Madrid. Among its exhibitions, the artist would deposit in 2003 some six hundred of his works. The following year he created the Torner Foundation and on December 7, 2005, after finishing the restoration works of the Church of San Pablo, in the former Dominican convent of Cuenca, the Torner space was inaugurated, a museum that permanently exposes paintings and sculptures of the artist, many of them
