SERGIO DE CASTRO
Exhibition at the gallery – January 2022
Chapitre 1/4
On this occasion, discover the painter Sergio de Castro in 4 chapters.
Femmes sous la pluie, 1953
Gouache on paper – 52,5 x 75 cm / 20.7 x 29.5 in.
Diane de Polignac Gallery, Paris
Sergio de Castro was a multi-faceted artist who took an interest in a number of different fields: music, architecture, stained glass, painting, drawing, and more. The genrebreaking artist used various techniques in his work: painting with oil and egg tempera, and working with gouache, ink and pencil. Moreover, his work took on many subjects: still lifes, the studio, landscapes, portraits, and more. Within this multi-faceted body of work, we have chosen to focus on the theme of the human figure in the artist’s work from the first half of the 1950s.
GRID & DOUBLE LINES
After training with the artist Joaquin Torres Garcia, the painter Sergio de Castro became an artist in his own right and developed an artistic vocabulary of his own. He explored many themes through the human figure, in a testament to his creative genius. The art historian Paule- Marie Grand explained: “The gouaches are constructed like canvases with rhythms that are most often linear and vertical. They are vigorous and subtle. They have authority and they testify to a craft worthy of the most meticulous of the old masters. (…) it is at every moment that one must think of the ‘little patch of yellow wall’ that Proust speaks of” [1]
[1] Paule-Marie Grand, “Sergio de Castro”, Le Monde, 1972
Voces, 1952
Gouache and ink on tinted paper
42,5 x 31,5 cm / 16.7 x 12.4 in.
Signed and dated “CASTRO 52” lower left
Diane de Polignac Gallery, Paris
The artist Sergio de Castro constructed his works on paper on the basis of grids and double lines, an approach we should consider in connection to his training as an architect—as encouraged by his father.
It was a geometric period for the artist, marked by the essential role of line and form, which would also foreshadow his great interest in stained glass. The art historian Lydia Harambourg explained: “The independence of Castro, within the pictorial issues that stimulate the Parisian art scene, is accomplished through constant interaction between painting and stained glass. (…). While he opts for a narrative style, any subject for him is above all a visual arts subject. (…) His development of form can only be understood if we compare his painting and his stained glass work, which respectively evoke the two original identities of Sergio de Castro’s art, the constructive and the ornamental. In his constant quest to move from the linear to the pictorial, from writing to colour, gesture is the one element through which everything transpires.” [2]
[1] Lydia Harambourg, Sergio de Castro, 2006
