GENEVA.- Piguet announced the auction of a major work by the Spanish artist Manolo Millares (1926–1972) in its upcoming modern and contemporary art sale, which will take place in Geneva on Wednesday, June 10, starting at 6 pm.

Created in 1960 and estimated at CHF 100,000–150,000, Cuadro belongs to a decisive period in the work of the Spanish artist Manolo Millares, founding member of the group El Paso and a key figure of Spanish Informalism. During this period, Millares fully asserted his singular visual language, making burlap canvas the very core of his artistic research. He achieved international recognition with exhibitions notably in New York City at the Museum of Modern Art and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.

In this composition of rare intensity, the material becomes alive: torn, stitched, knotted and repaired, the burlap ceases to be a simple support and acquires an almost corporeal presence. The large black areas, the sections of raw canvas, the gaping cavities and the sutures give the work an exceptional dramatic force, subtly heightened by a few touches of red. In post-war Spain, and through this raw, wounded and recomposed material, Manolo Millares evokes human vulnerability, memory and the wounds of History without ever resorting to direct figurative representation.

Manolo Millares is today represented in the world’s leading international collections, notably at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, the Museum of Modern Art and the Tate. Cuadro, first presented in leading galleries, then at Sotheby's in 1988 and Christie's in 1995, now reappears on the market at Piguet after having remained in a private collection for more than 30 years.

“This rediscovery constitutes a major event for collectors and enthusiasts of post-war art,” emphasizes Adeline Bisch Balerna, head of the department. “This 1960 Cuadro brings together the qualities most sought after in Manolo Millares’s work: a key date corresponding to the precise moment when his visual language reached full maturity and his work established itself on the international scene, an emblematic technique of torn and sutured burlap canvas, a strong anthropomorphic presence and an international provenance.”