Royo | 50 Years A Master: Mediterraneo Series

ROYO

50 YEARS A MASTER: MEDITERRANEO SERIES

FOREWORD “50 Years a Master: Mediterraneo Series” Royo (Jose Mateu San Hilario, b. 1941) is a Spanish contemporary figurative painter whose exuberant brushstroke technique achieves intense luminosity and a sense of great vitality on the canvas. Capturing the light and colour of southern Spain and the Mediterranean islands of Mallorca and Ibiza, he portrays demure young women in flowing garments, set against lush backgrounds of flowers or the vivid blue sea. He explores the mythical, the maternal, the sensual, and the weightless human form escaping its earthbound existence.

This forthcoming exhibition 50 Years a Master: Mediterraneo Series, marks the latest pictorial obsession by Royo. Like the Impressionist painters before him such as Joaquín Sorolla, Claude Monet or Edgar Degas, Royo creates impressionistic portraits and landscapes of great sophistication and lyrical sensibility. However, it should also be noted that Royo’s true inspiration and foundations come from the Golden Age of the 15th and 16th centuries of Baroque Spanish painters in the form of the great masters such as Velázquez and Goya.

What really sets Royo’s art apart from his contemporaries is his portrayal of colour. As the former Director of the Prado Museum, Felipe Garin Llombart, beautifully notes in an essay dedicated to the artist in 2010 about his work: “It is a homage to colour – to colour as a vital necessity, as indispensable for life, making it possible to feel happiness, sorrow, strength or driving one to act - colour duly ordered within each work of art, the very opposite of chaos and disorder, its antithesis.”

Royo has been painting relentlessly since the age of seven, when he learned at an early age to apply his artistic genius at the prestigious Royal Academy of San Carlos in Valencia. He continues to be influenced by many historical periods, and draws inspiration from his home town in the beautiful Valencian countryside.

Royo’s elegant paintings have attracted a huge following and he has exhibited throughout his native Spain, across Europe, Japan and the United States. He has had several important commissions, which include leading portraits for the High Ministry of Justice in Spain and a portrait of his former Majesty King Juan Carlos I of Spain. He was also awarded the prestigious Rotary Personality of The Year Award in 2009.

This Autumn, we are incredibly proud to present a wonderful collection of paintings to the public across two prestigious exhibition locations, Castle Fine Art, Mayfair and Halcyon Gallery Harrods.

MALLORCA Oil on Canvas | Image size 150cm x 150cm

P E N S AT I VA Oil on Canvas | Image size 61cm x 38cm

PENUMBRA Oil on Canvas | Image size 55cm x 38cm

ANDALUZA Oil on Canvas | Image size 50cm x 50cm

FLOREAL Oil on Canvas | Image size 46cm x 55cm

LA MAJA DE LA PERLA Oil on Canvas | Image size 92cm x 73cm

AL SOL Oil on Canvas | Image size 38cm x 55cm

C L AV E L Oil on Canvas | Image size 46cm x 27cm

POESIA Oil on Canvas | Image size 38cm x 46cm

COLLAR ROJO Oil on Canvas | Image size 50cm x 50cm

CLASICA Oil on Canvas | Image size 46cm x 27cm

~ LUZ DE LA MANANA Oil on Canvas | Image size 92cm x 73cm

LA PERLA Oil on Canvas | Image size 50cm x 50cm

LUMINOSA Oil on Canvas | Image size 60cm x 125cm

REFLEJOS Oil on Canvas | Image size 50cm x 50cm

LAS AMIGAS Oil on Canvas | Image size 92cm x 73cm

ABRIL Oil on Canvas | Image size 92cm x 73cm

MEDITERRANEO Oil on Canvas | Image size 100cm x 100cm

MIRADA Oil on Canvas | Image size 100cm x 100cm

BLANCOS Oil on Canvas | Image size 73cm x 60cm

FLORES Oil on Canvas | Image size 65cm x 81cm

RAQUEL Oil on Canvas | Image size 61cm x 38cm

ROYO BIOGRAPHICAL HIGHLIGHTS TRAINING 1956–1960 From 1960

San Carlos Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Valencia, Spain Studio of Aldolfo Ferrer Amblar, Valencia, Spain

SELECTED EXHIBITIONS Royo: Agua, Christopher Clark Fine Art, San Francisco, USA 2012 Equus y Momentos, Cutter & Cutter Fine Art Galleries, St Augustine, Florida, USA 2012 Exclusive Collections Galleries, San Diego, California, USA 2011 Equus, Christopher Clark Fine Art, San Francisco, USA 2010 Azules y Blancos, Halcyon Gallery, London 2010 P&C Art, Fairfax, Virginia, USA 2009 Mujeres, Christopher Clark Fine Art, San Francisco, USA 2009 Royo ingrávidos, Halcyon Gallery, London 2008 Mujeres, Palau de la Música, Valencia, Spain 2008 Ingrávidos, Museo Edifici Miramar, Sitges, Spain 2008 Sagittas, Palacio de los Serrano, Ávila, Spain 2007 Ingrávidos, Coral Springs Museum of Art, Florida, USA 2007 Ingrávidos, Museo Diocesà, Barcelona, Spain 2007 Ingrávidos, Museo Almodí, Valencia, Spain 2006 Harem, UBS Bank, Geneva 2004 Royo, Halcyon Gallery, London 2003 Sagittas, Palau de la Música, Valencia, Spain 1999 Sagittas, Haggin Museum, Stockton, California, USA 1998

ART FAIRS 2004 1996–2000 1995–1998 1995 1995 1994 1992 1989

ArtExpo, Barcelona, Spain ArtExpo, New York ArtExpo, Barcelona, Spain EuropArt, Geneva Art Miami, Florida, USA Interart, Valencia, Spain Interart, Valencia, Spain Interart, Valencia, Spain

COLLECTIONS High Ministry of Justice, Spain Spanish Embassy, Tokyo Sultan of Brunei

AWARDS 2009

2009 Rotary Personality of the Year, Valencia

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS Aqua, exhibition catalogue with text by Mark Miles (Christopher Clark Fine Art) 2012 Royo: Equus, exhibition catalogue with texts by Mark Miles and the artist 2010 (Christopher Clark Fine Art) Azules y Blancos, exhibition catalogue with Foreword by Felipe Vicente 2010 Garín Llombart and ‘Conversation’ between Royo and Carlos García Osuna (Halcyon Gallery) Royo: Mujeres, book with text by the artist (Royo Art) 2008 Royo ingrávidos, exhibition catalogue with essays: Carlos González López, 2008 ‘The Gravity-less’; Isidre Roset i Juan, ‘Artistic Levitation’; Alberto de la Hera, ‘Royo Ingrávidos’ (Halcyon Gallery) Utopía, book with texts by Ricardo Forriols, Alberto de la Hera, Greg Bloch, 2008 Carlos González López and the artist (Royo Art) Lumínica, book with text by Lucía Mateu (Art Leaders Gallery) 2005 Royo: Studies for Harem, book with text by Ricardo Forriols (Royo Art) 2004 Royo: Génesis, book (Royo Art) 2003 Royo, exhibition catalogue with essay: Ricardo Forriols, ‘Another Light, Every 2003 Day, Always Sunday’ (Halcyon Gallery) The Colors of Life, book with text by Greg Bloch and CD-rom titled Privilege (Royo Art) 2002 Royo: Legends of the Sun, book with texts by Stevan Diamant, Greg Bloch, 2001 Sarah Seamark and Lucía Mateu (Arcadia Gallery) Royo: Drawings, book with text by Jordi Gonzalez Llacer (Royo Art) 2000 Royo: Pasión, book with essays: Vicente Muñoz Puelles, ‘Royo or the Passion 2000 for Painting’; Ricardo Forriols, ‘Passion’ (Washington Green) The White Book, book with texts by Ricardo Forriols and Vicente Blanes (Royo Art) 2000 Catalogue Raisonné, with text by Carlos González López 2000 Seduction of Color and Form, book with texts by Luis Geller and Lucía Mateu 2000 (Editorial La Mascara) Verano, exhibition catalogue with text by Greg Bloch (Triad Art Group) 1999 Sagittas, book with text by Alberto de la Hera (Editorial La Mascara) 1998 Worlds Beyond the Paintbrush, book with texts by Ricardo Forriols and Juan Llop 1997 (Editorial La Mascara)

MEDIA 2010

Royo, Azules y Blancos film (Gondola Films)

Royo Spanish, b. 1941 José Mateu San Hilario, known as Royo, was born in Valencia on 20 December 1941, and his desire to paint began in earliest childhood. When he was nine his father – a doctor with a strong interest in art – acknowledged his ability and began to employ private tutors to instruct him in drawing, painting and sculpture.

At 14, Royo enrolled at the San Carlos Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Valencia, continuing lessons privately from the age of 18 with Adolfo Ferrer Amblar. To supplement his art-historical studies he visited the major museums of Europe, seeing at first hand works that would inspire and influence him, including paintings

by Diego Velázquez, Francisco Goya, Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Joaquín Sorolla.

In his twenties, he began to exhibit his canvases in Spain and Portugal in 1968, soon receiving commissions for portraits of King Juan Carlos, Queen Sofia and a number of prominent political figures. During the 1970s and 1980s he worked on mastering light and shadow, colour and vibrancy as he focused on painting the land of his birth, recreating the atmosphere and brilliant sunlight of the Mediterranean.

By 1989, Royo’s mature style had developed, with iridescent colour and heavy impasto expressing the essence of southern Europe. Like Renoir, he pays tribute to the female form, depicting it with an innocent loveliness and serenity, the gaze lowered.

There are parallels between Royo’s art and that of Sorolla. Both have been described as ‘painters of the light’, and Royo evokes the startling blues of the Mediterranean under the southern sun most notably in his Mallorca works. Staying on the island each year, he uses its coastline and cliffs, its white sands and sea breezes, to heighten an already vivid palette and breathe extra life into the thick, flowing tresses of his subjects. At his estate in a village near Valencia, the settings are more tranquil, with orchards or white-painted walls as the backdrop.

‘One theme dominates, sometimes becoming obsessive’, writes Vicente Muñoz Puelles. ‘Woman, almost always in the sun, beneath a diaphanous sky, surrounded by luxuriant vegetation and covered with light clothing... Royo knows that clothes can make the form more mysterious, and, at the same time, more understandable. Woman as medium, as an ambassador of Nature, as creator of magical atmospheres. “If I lived a thousand years”, says Royo, “I would be a thousand years restarting this subject”.’

Royo’s career has spanned over five decades and his paintings and silkscreens have attained worldwide popularity. Several major books on his works have been published in Spanish and English, among them Worlds Beyond the Paintbrush (1997), Pasión (2000), The Colors of Life (2002, with CD-rom), Lumínica (2005) and Utopía (2008). His paintings are held in various collections, including those of the Sultan of Brunei and the Spanish Embassy in Tokyo. Royo has participated in international art fairs and has exhibited throughout Spain, across Europe, in Japan, China and the United States, often breaking attendance records at the museums.

MAYFAIR

The images contained within this literature are an artistic representation of the collection, the dimensions shown in this catalogue are based on the paintings unframed. To best experience our art, we recommend you contact your local gallery to arrange a viewing. Š Washington Green 2014. The content of this brochure is subject to copyright and no part can be reproduced withiut prior permission