Please join us for the opening of our new show (or any other time until it closes) to consider the paradoxical role of five Spanish artists—all of whom spent large portions of their lives fleeing authoritarian governments or a culture that seemed to require that they leave in order to find themselves—in defining many of the chief artistic movements of the last century. We will be showing over 130 original prints by Picasso, Miro, and Tapies, sculptures, drawings, and prints by Artigas, and paintings on canvas, board, and paper, monotypes, and prints by Lledos. All of these artists are familiar to followers of Spaightwood. Among the recent acquisitions to be featured in the show will be one of Picasso's earliest prints (from 1905) plus later works scattered throughout his career, two wonderful new etchings acquired from the widow of one of Miró's printers plus others added since our last Miro show, and never before shown works by Tapies, Artigas, and Lledos (not to mention many masterpieces we have shown before that may be new, as Prospero tells Miranda at the end of The Tempest, to thee).

The show, as usual, will include over 130 works, many of which have been shown in museums all over the world, so even if you have seen them before, you may enjoy seeing them again. C. S. Lewis once said that a book that's only worth reading once isn't worth reading at all; we find the same to be true of art as well: if a work of art cannot grow richer and inspire more complex responses the more it is seen, it's perhaps best thought of as a cheap thrill no matter how expensive it is (and some of the thrills in this show will not fit most people's definition of cheap though thankfully many will: prices of prints by Artigas and Lledos are still quite affordable; prices for Picasso, Miro, and Tapies prints are still within the realm of possibility—especially for unsigned works— though their paintings have all sold for prices in the millions (and even tens of millions in the cases of Picasso and Miro).

Picasso, Miro, and Tapies have each created works that have defined the limits of the possible for other artists; Artigas and Lledos are still working within the heritage bequeathed them by their countrymen, but both have created large and growing bodies of works that are instantly recognizable as their own and both are getting more and more assured of their own visions as they have built up over the past few decades bodies of work that have allowed them to build newer and richer works upon the foundation of what they have already achieved. As Miro had to digest what Picasso had done before he could receive Picasso's ultimate accolade that only he had taken painting past the place where Picasso had left it, and as Tapies had to be freed from Franco's attempts to repress modernism by his understanding of what Picasso and, especially, Miro had achieved, so Artigas, who collaborated with Miro for over twenty years on ceramic sculptures and murals (he also taught Chagall, Braque, Chillida, and Tapies how to work in ceramics) and Lledos, who had to absorb how Tapies used abstraction as a weapon against the culture that Franco was trying to impose upon Spain (much as Hitler and Stalin had made purging all of the artists who refused to give up the freedom to build their own visions upon the achievements of those who came before them and who refused to throw them over for the then "cutting-edge" styles of Socialist Realism and Nazi-approved non-"decadent" "patriotic" art) before he could freely work in a foreign culture to build a bridge from his past to a very new present.

In America, art galleries and often museums tend to focus on the new and neglect the old; this may explain why we have such a fragmented visual culture that few artists find it possible to produce an evolving body of work over a lifetime. In Europe, however, where thousands of years of art offer themselves to the eye in almost any city (sometimes, even any church or public building), one could only ignore the past by blinding oneself (perhaps this is what Oedipus really had in mind).

PABLO PICASSO (Spanish, 1881-1973), Degas in the Bordello. (Series 156 n. 95) Original etching, 1971. 50 numbered impressions signed with the estate signature stamp. Executed 3/25/71 and approved by Picasso before his death, this etching, like the others in this series, was printed posthumously. Image size: 230x310mm. Price: $5,575.

JOAN MIRO (Spanish, 1893-1983), Fissures II (D.466, Cramer 130). Original color soft varnish-etching and aquatint, 1969. 75 signed & numbered impressions plus 20 HC impressions. Ours is a printer's proof on BFK Rives. Published by Maeght, Paris; our impression comes from the widow of the printer, Robert Dutrou, one of Miró's favorite collaborators. Image size: 195x290mm; Paper size: 485x577mm. Price: $10,100.

ANTONI TAPIES (Spanish, b. 1923), Affiche avant lettre 1990. Original color lithograph, 1990. 100 signed & numbered impressions. There is also a poster version with lettering for an exhibition at Galerie Lelong. Image size: 775x613mm. Price: $4,600.

JOAN GARDY ARTIGAS (Spanish, b. 1938). Geography of desire (ME 80, p. 29). Original color lithograph, 1979. 75 signed & numbered impressions. Image size: 501x322mm. Price: $575.

MANEL LLEDOS (Spanish, b. 1955), Retrat / portrait. Gouache and ink on paper, 1997. Lledos was born in Barcelona and lives in New York City. His work has been shown at the Chicago and LA International Art Fairs, and he has been featured in one-person shows & group shows in the US, Canada, Spain, and South America. In 1984 he was awarded the Prize of the Americas. Image size: 665x510mm. Price: $1,900.