This is a beautiful, important and RARE Antique Mid Century Modern Abstract Basque Oil Painting on wood, by Spanish Basque modernist painter Miguel Marina 1915 – 1989. This work depicts an abstracted and surrealist interpretation of the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ, with heavy influences of Medieval and Byzantine art. Marina’s religious works were done during the early 1960’s, and this particular painting is from his renowned and exhibited “Palomares” series. In the painting, the crucified Jesus is shown surrounded by various figures, such as a winged angel, Saints Peter and Mary Magdalene at his feet. Good condition overall, with some areas of light scuffing and edge wear please see photos. Signed: “Miguel 62″ in the upper right. Approximately 11 x 33 inches. An exhibition label on the verso reads: October 13 to November 8, 1968. Miguel Marina: Recent paintings and selections from the Palomares series. Esther Bear Gallery, 1125 High Road – Santa Barbara, California 93103. Gallery open Wednesday, Friday, Sunday 2-5 or by appointment… Marina’s works are very rare, and seldom seen. In recent retrospectives, he has been identified as one of the most important Basque artists of the 20th century. Please check my other listings for more wonderful and unique artworks! I SPECIALIZE IN THE FOLLOWING ART GENRES: Antique California Plein Air Impressionism, Asian Modernism, Mid Century Modern, African American Folk Art, and 19th c. If you collect such works, please check my listings often! Miguel Marina’s distinctive expressionism reflects the longing of a life spent in exile and the hope for a world free of violence. His dreamlike tableaux of angels, saints, and the symbolic objects of his Basque Country are unique depictions of an earthly paradise tinged with the sorrow of a homeland lost. Born in Bilbao in 1915, Marina grew up the eldest son of a middle-class Basque family. When the Spanish Civil War erupted in 1936, Marina joined the fight against General Francisco Franco, the leader of the Nationalist forces who were attempting to crush the democratically elected government. In 1939, with Franco’s victory imminent, he escaped from Spain, crossing the Atlantic with eight other Basques in a small fishing boat. He eventually arrived in the United States as a political refugee. Marina honed his original style on the grounds of the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions, a prominent think tank located in Santa Barbara, California, where he lived with his wife, Madeline, and daughter, Constance. There, he worked out of a converted stable behind his family’s cottage and found himself amidst a lively group of writers, intellectuals, and activists, including W. Ferry, John Cogley, Donald MacDonald, and Scott Buchanan. This group gathered regularly at the Marinas’ cottage for long conversations about politics, philosophy, and religion. Marina’s art also became part of the think tank’s culture. His paintings made their way into the homes of many of the Center’s resident intellectuals and he designed the cover for two of the Center’s publications. From 1959 to 1977, Marina regularly exhibited one-man shows at the Esther Bear Gallery in Montecito, and was included in group shows in Los Angeles and Pasadena. While living in Madrid in 1972, his work was shown at the Galería Antonio Machado, and the Exposición nacional de arte contemporáneo. Earlier in his career, he also assisted José Vela Zanetti on “Mankind’s Struggle for a Lasting Peace, ” a massive mural inside the United Nations Conference Building in New York City. He continued to live and work in Santa Barbara until his death in 1989. Posthumously, Marina’s work has seen three exhibitions. From November 17, 2009 to January 10, 2010, paintings from Marina’s. Stations of the Cross. At the Instituto Cervantes in New York City. In 2015, the centenary of the artist’s birth, Professor Anthony L. Geist of the University of Washington organized a retrospective of Marina’s work in his native city of Bilbao. A trilingual catalogue with reproductions of his work and a short biography was produced for the exhibition, Icons of Memory: The Work of Miguel Marina, Basque Painter. That was shown at the Ilustre Colegio de Abogados del Señorío de Vizcaya from October 21st to November 13th. In 2016, the exhibition traveled to the Musée Basque et de l’histoire de Bayonne in Bayonne, France, where it was shown from June 10 to July 24th. One of his Palomares murals hangs in the Casa de Cultura in Guernica. Opening of the exhibition “From Bayonne to Exile: The Work of Miguel Marina, Basque Painter”. Opening of the exhibition “From Bayonne to Exile: The Work of Miguel Marina, Basque Painter” on June 14th. At 6:00 p. In Bayonne (at the Basque Museum of Bayonne – located at 37 Quai des Corsaires). Born in Bilbao in the heart of the Spanish Basque Country, Marina was commissioned as a captain in the Republican infantry at the outbreak of the Civil War. He fought throughout the northern front before taking refuge in Bayonne at the end of the war. He crossed the Atlantic on a small boat with six others, landing in Venezuela, where he stayed for a year, earning his living as a professional soccer player. Under constant surveillance as a “dangerous radical, ” Marina and a friend set sail for Miami, only to be blown off course by a hurricane and stranded in the Dominican Republic, where he lived under the Trujillo dictatorship for three years. There he met his wife, Madeline, and their daughter Constance was born two years later. It was in New York that Marina began painting seriously, first apprenticing with the Spanish painter Julio de Diego and later working as fellow exile José Vela Zanetti’s assistant on the massive UN mural, “Mankind’s Struggle for a Lasting Peace”. Undocumented and unable to make a living in New York, Marina accepted a position as manager of a banana plantation in Ecuador, realizing soon after arriving that he had been lied to. Madeline and Constance were able to return to the States but he was not. He made his way overland to Mexico and recalled, just after crossing from Guatemala, coming upon a rural tavern called “Aquí mueren los valientes” (The brave die here). He thought, My God, have I come all this way to end like this? Stranded in Mexico, having wound up in jail in Tijuana for lack of papers, his wife and child in the US, he decided that the only way they could be together was in Spain. But the Bilbao of 1956 was not the city he had known twenty years before and he knew they had to leave. In 1958 they resettled in California, and when Madeline got a job the next year at the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions, in Montecito, Miguel finally was able to devote himself full time to his painting. Marina was largely self-taught as a painter. He painted on wood, bricks and less commonly on canvas. While we can distinguish provisionally three distinct periods in his painting all share certain characteristics: the use of strong primary colors reminiscent of Gothic stained glass windows; the human figures are elongated, particularly their faces and hands, and evoke both Byzantine and Romanesque figures as they directly face the viewer; religious themes, particularly the Crucifixion, the Annunciation, and the Last Supper; recreations of the landscape of his native Basque Country, increasingly present in his later paintings; and a lyricism and deep emotion that runs throughout. Marina had a number of individual exhibits at the Esther Baer Gallery in Santa Barbara, but when the owner retired in 1977, closing her gallery, from then until his death in 1989 he would never have another show. Yet it is in this final period that he creates some of his finest paintings. Marina’s work in the last decade of his life grows more intensely personal and lyrical, recreating images of the Basque Country. He abandons religious themes, exploring instead his icons of memory: fishing boats, dishes of codfish, men wearing Basque berets, wine vessels, bridges and red tiled roofs. In one of his last diary entries Marina wrote: I remember Spain more and more at each turn and at the same time I want to forget it. Agatha, where I sang solo in my baritone voice, in the streets of Bilbao, full of children who followed us every where. I’ll soon be 74 years old and I’ll never return to my beloved Basque Country; for this reason my paintings, like a giant mirage, are memories of my beloved land. This item is in the category “Art\Paintings”. The seller is “willsusa_utzeqm” and is located in this country: US. 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- Painting Surface: Wood
- Features: Signed
- Region of Origin: Europe
- Width (Inches): 11
- Production Technique: Oil Painting
- Subject: Religious
- Size: Medium (up to 36in.)
- Material: Oil
- Height (Inches): 33
- Date of Creation: 1950-1969
- Artist: Miguel Marina
- Year of Production: 1962
- Style: Abstract
- Color: Multi-Color
- Original/Licensed Reproduction: Original
- Type: Painting