SEGOVIA, SPAIN.- The Museo de Arte Contemporaneo Esteban Vicente will celebrate this artist’s birth centennial. He died in 2001 in New York. The celebration will include three exhibitions that will present different creative stages of Vicente, the only Spanish artist that was part of the School of New York. The first exhibition is "Zurbarán, Juan Gris and Esteban Vicente. A Spanish Tradition of Modernity" and opens at the end of January. The second exhibition will focus on the work by Vicente before he goes to New York in 1936 and will be curated by Juan Manuel Bonet. It will open in April and will be on view through June. The third exhibition will focus in Vicente’s abstract expressionism and his work at the School of New York. Vicente, a seminal member of the New York art scene for over fifty years, until his death in 2001 at the age of 98, was a first-generation Abstract Expressionist known for his singular talents as a colorist, and for his profoundly spiritual and moving compositions. Born in Spain in 1903, Vicente spent almost every Sunday of his young life looking at the Spanish masterpieces in the Prado Museum. Vicente lived in Paris and Barcelona for several years and met many of Europe’s leading artists, including fellow Spaniard Pablo Picasso. In 1936 Vicente married an American woman and moved to New York.

Vicente was inspired by the extreme highs and lows of life in New York, lovingly calling the city "Hell," and quickly making it his home. In these early years, Vicente admired the work of Milton Avery, Arthur Dove, and Marsden Hartley.