Eduardo Arranz-Bravo was born in Barcelona and knew he was an artist from an early age. During a trip to Paris in 1958, at the age of 17, his work took a radical departure from conventional realism to abstraction. Motivated by travels in Paris and Italy, in 1959 Eduardo enrolled in the Escuela Superior de Bella Artes de San Jorge, in Barcelona, an important art school which he immediately detested. Recognizing the talent of this young painter, the renowned Barcelona gallery, Sala Gaspar, the first in Spain to show the works of Picasso and Miró, welcomed Arranz-Bravo in 1961 when he was only 24.
Steeped in history, Barcelona and Catalonia are historic regions that have produced many great artists. Arranz-Bravo is a new link in this long chain of artists including Gaudí, Picasso, Miró, Dali, Tàpies and others who collectively made very important contributions to the evolution of art over the course of the 20th century. In Arranz-Bravo’s work you can see the influence of Gaudí’s pulsating, organic architectural forms, the many manifestations of Dali’s Surrealist imagination and Miró’s colorful biomorphic shapes and electrifying black lines. Eduardo has taken all of these elements and made them his own, creating a unique visual voice. The artist’s mode is fierce, rebellious, festive and fantastical—a hybrid sensibility which seems inseparable from the historic decades of Catalan experience under the Franco dictatorship and its aftermath.
Eduardo has had a long and illustrious career; his paintings, drawings and sculptures have been exhibited in many important institutions including Madrid’s Reina Sofía Museum, the Venice Biennale and the Museum of Modern Art in São Paulo, Brazil. The artist has also left his mark on a multiplicity of media: illustrated books, theater sets and collaborations with poets. His impressive murals and sculptures enhance the cityscape in and around Barcelona, and his famous Tipel Factory (a collaboration with Rafael Bartolozzi from 1968-69) in Parets del Vallès has been historically landmarked. Arranz-Bravo remains the only living Spanish artist to have his own foundation, a platform he uses generously to introduce and support emerging contemporary artists. Arranz-Bravo now lives and works in a studio designed by Jordi Garces (the architect that designed the Picasso Museum) in the lovely town of Vallvidrera in the hills above Barcelona.
Selected Museum Exhibitions and Public Collections
Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain
Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain
Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art, Barcelona, Spain
Carmen and Lluís Bassat Private Foundation, Mataró, Spain
Museum of Fine Arts, Seville, Spain
La Caixa Foundation, Barcelona, Spain
Museum of Contemporary Art, Villfamés, Spain
Fine Arts Museum of Alava in Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain
L'Hospitalet Museum, L'Hospitalet de Llobregat, Spain
State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia
Getty Collection, London, United Kingdom
Royal Museum of Fine Arts of Belgium
Dutch National Opera House, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Haus der Kunst, Munich, Germany
The Olympic Museum, Lausanne, Switzerland
The Henry Buhl Foundation, New York, New York, USA