Rafael Canogar: Imprints (1958 – 1963)

5 Jun-25 Jul 2025 | Mayor Gallery | London

Organised in partnership between the Mayor Gallery, London and the Guillermo de Osma Gallery in Madrid, Rafael Canogar –Imprints (Paintings 1958 -1962) is an exhibition comprising fourteen landmark paintings from the early, ‘Informalist’ period (1958-62) when Canogar first made his name.

Rafael Canogar (born 1935) is one of the leading Spanish artists of the post-war era. He first came to prominence in Madrid in the late-1950s as a founder member of the El Paso group amidst an era of conservatism, social conformity and oppression under General Franco.

There, in conjunction with other young artists such as Manolo Millares, Antonio Saura, and Manuel Rivera, Canogar was responsible for creating a provocative and radically new, gestural language of abstract painting that gave fierce, visceral expression to a dynamic sense of energy and individual freedom and immediately established Canogar as one of the foremost pioneers of Informalist painting in Europe. Canogar’s work has, over the last seventy years, continued to evolve through a wide variety of different styles and media.