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Article Featured in the March 2013 issue of “Art & Antiques” magazine

Spain’s Alvar Seeks Venues for Inspiration

By Stephanie Hunt

With a career spanning more than half a century, Alvar Suñol has established himself as one of Spain’s most prolific living artists as museums and galleries continue to honor his timeless and symbolic works.  These works have lead to prestigious awards, solo exhibitions, books on his life and art, an award-winning documentary which has been seen on public television and permanent installations.

Since his first American exhibition in 1962, courtesy of Monde Gallery in New York, Alvar’s work has been shown from Florida to California.  His work has been featured in seventeen museum exhibitions around the world, five since 2005, three of which are in America – The Appleton Museum of Art (Ocala, Florida), The Albany Museum of Art (Albany, Georgia) and the Museum of Biblical Art (Dallas, Texas).  Dr. Betty Jean Craige, retired Director of the Center for Humanities and Arts at the University of Georgia and author of two books on the career and life of Alvar notes that, “with recent exhibits acknowledging the importance of his work to the history of Catalan art, Alvar assumes a well-earned place among the region’s other 20^th-century greats.”

In 2006, Dr. Craige and Alan Stecker, an artist and retired professor at the University of Georgia co-produced a documentary called Alvar Suñol: His Vision and His Art.  The 42-minute film was awarded first place in the short documentary category at the Indie Gathering independent film festival.

A source of his artistic inspiration lies in his renovated Coasta Brava summer home.  Built in 1750, the old stone of the house and the stunning, hillside lot called to Alvar’s love of his home region of Spain where he has lived all but 11 of his 78 years.  The 11 years he was away were spent studying and painting in Paris, France.  Acquiring this beautiful piece of history in 2002, Alvar spent a year renovating the home in order to create a perfect space for his artistic needs.  In 2005, he added a modern kitchen and pool to complete his perfect home.  A portion of the original building was converted into his home studio where he creates his masterful works.

Although his early career focus was on the art of lithography, his new focus has shifted to creating large scaled oils and depicting scenes from the Bible and honoring his artistic muses.

Recent commissions by prominent Denver Vascular Malformation physician, art collector, whose collection numbers over 3,500 pieces, and Alvar enthusiast, Dr. Wayne F. Yakes are now on display at the Museum of Biblical Art in Dallas, Texas.  For the past year Alvar has been working on two of the largest additions to this collection, Discovering Baby Moses and Jesus Teaching in the Temple.  Each of these new oils measure 78 x 118 inches (200 x 300 cm).

Dr. Yakes feels that the messages Alvar tell in each of his paintings sets his art apart from other artist and is what draws him to the art of Alvar. His bedroom is lined with Alvar oils and he jokingly says “I rest my eyes each evening taking the day’s last look at the works I admire most”.

Alvar honors painters such as Picasso, Vermeer, Francesca and Balthus in his piece Le Voyeur Malgré Lui Même.  Alvar also finds music to be an important aspect of the artistic process and pays tribute to composers such a Beethoven, Pau Casals and Mozart, as seen in Musique de Chambre.