This collection by Pic Adrian (Moineşti, 1910 - Barcelona, 2008), features the artist’s acrylics on canvas and on paper, wood reliefs and collages created between 1967 and 1998. After two decades without any solo exhibitions of his work in Barcelona, this show offers us a glimpse into the world of the artist, characterized by a continuous yearning for purity.
Recognized globally as a painter, poet and art theorist, this multifaceted artist captures serenity on canvas. Departing from an abstract style, he refines his paintings in search of an ideal aesthetic described in his essays and coined by the artist himself as Essentialism. We see the few organic lines that appear in his first works meticulously disappear, while he deliberately reduces his expressions to few geometrical elements to achieve what he calls Arte Principial. Adrian plays with a harmonious composition, where voids and silences speak volumes. This formal simplicity instills passion for austerity and shows the artist’s spatial awareness without resorting to a systematic order, evoking an oneiric randomness.
As Alex Mitrani explains in the introductory text to the catalogue, this [his painting] contains clarity, serenity and order that are not cold, but velvety, and which refer not only to a state of mind but to a civilization and an ideal in which science and poetic meditation embrace each other.
Pic Adrian was born in 1910 in Moineşti (Romania), and in 1915 his family moved to Bucharest where years later he studied law. He published his first volume of poetry, Jocuri de lumini în întoneric (Light Interplay in Darkness) in 1927. In Paris, decades later, he published five more books: Oeil du ciel: coeur (1973), Main planétaire (1985), Noyau De l'infini (1990), L'Île invisible (1994) and Transparence (1999).
He immigrated to Israel in 1950 and in 1953 he lived in France, where he met prominent figures such as Brancusi, Chagall, Fernand Léger, Jean Arp and Pau Casals, among others. In July 1953 he arrived in Barcelona, where he later established residency, although he always remained active in Paris.
His first solo exhibition was in 1962 at Galeria Syra in Barcelona. It was during this time when Adrian established the art group Tendencias Esencialisas, which exhibited in Barcelona in 1967 and in Madrid in 1969. He also published many art theory books and took part in different collective exhibitions in Barcelona, Madrid, Paris, London, Rouen, Le Havre, West Germany, etc. Noteworthy among his solo exhibitions include those at Gallery Raymonde Cazenave, Paris in 1965, 1969 and 1974; Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona in 1979; Galería Ciento, Barcelona in 1981; the Pic Adrian Anthology at the Exhibition Space of Banco Bilbao Vizcaya, Barcelona in 1991; IVAM, Centro Julio González, Valencia in 1994 and finally, the exhibition at Centre d’Art Santa Mònica, Barcelona in 1997.
Between 1970 and 1971, two of the artist’s serigraphs were published in Turin and Barcelona: 10 Condizioni lineari di segnaletica aleatoria and Sincronías, respectively. Throughout the course of his life, he travelled tirelessly in Western Europe and the United States.
Two monographs have been published on Pic Adrian: the first in Paris in 1977, written by the well-known critic Pierre Restany; the second one is from Barcelona, 1984, written by Arnau Puig and Richard Kotelanetz, which offers a complete vision of his paintings and other activities.
His oeuvre can be found in numerous collections and institutions such as: Boymans van Beuningen Museum, Rotterdam; Cabinet des Estampes, Geneva; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (MNCARS), Madrid; Fondation for Constructivist and Concrete Art, Zurich; Henie-Onstad Artcenter, Oslo; Institut Valencià d’Art Modern (IVAM), Valencia; Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Pompidou, Paris; Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris; Museo de Arte Moderno, Rio de Janeiro; Museum für Kunsthandwerk, Frankfurt; Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya (MNAC), Barcelona; Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA), Barcelona; Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Tel Aviv Museum, Tel Aviv; The Israel Museum, Jerusalem and Victoria and Albert Museum, London.