Manuel Rivera

Manuel Rivera (Granada 1927-1995, Madrid) is one of the most important Spanish painters of the second half of the 20th century. His age and artistic development place him among that select group of artists who came together in the decade marked by cultural depravation immediately following the Civil War but who were able to re-connect Spain to the international developments of Modern Art.

In 1945, Rivera had his first one-man-show. In 1951, he participated in the First Spanish-American Art Biennale held at Madrid. This show was the first sign of an opening of the regime of Franco towards new international artistic trends. In 1957, Rivera was one of the founders of the historical group EL PASO (Saura, Chirino, Canogar, Feito, Surez, Juana Frances, and the critics Conde and Ayllul); he would remain an active participant in the group's activities until its dissolution in the middle of the 1960s.

Since 1958, Manuel Rivera has participated in individual and group exhibitions held at well-known institutions and galleries both in Spain and abroad. In addition, his work has entered various prestigious collections of modern art (the British Museum in London, the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh, the Collection of Contemporary Art in the Museo Patio Herreriano in Valladolid, the Folkswang Museum in Essen, the Kunsthalle in Mannheim, the National Museum of Art in Paris, the MOMA, and the Solomon Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdan, as well as over seventy outstanding public and private collections).