Miquel Navarro, one of Spain’s most internationally recognised sculptors of the post-Franco period, has died at the age of 81 after a long illness. The Valencian artist passed away at his home in Mislata, accompanied by his life partner, cultural journalist Rafa Marí.
Navarro was best known for his large-scale “cities”: sculptural installations made up of hundreds of independent geometric pieces that evoke urban landscapes, industrial structures and rural environments. His fascination with cities, particularly New York and its skyscrapers, became one of the defining features of his work.
His public sculptures include Fuente pública, a 23-metre work at the southern entrance to Valencia that residents nicknamed “La pantera rosa” because of its pinkish colour and form. In Mislata, his hometown, another major work, L’almasil, rises 36 metres and reflects his recurring interest in totems and symbols of power.
Navarro took part in the 1980 exhibition New Images from Spain at New York’s Guggenheim Museum, alongside nine other artists. His work later entered the collections of institutions including the Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, the Pompidou Centre in Paris, Madrid’s Reina Sofía Museum, Japan’s Mie Prefectural Art Museum and Valencia’s IVAM.
A painter, printmaker and photographer as well as a sculptor, Navarro received Spain’s National Prize for Plastic Arts in 1986, jointly with Miquel Barceló. He was also considered a key figure in the New Spanish Sculpture movement.
The artist frequently drew on memories of his childhood in Mislata, where he was born in 1945. The town was then surrounded by farmland, and Navarro recalled being fascinated by the journey into Valencia, as well as by canals, insects and the natural world. His work also absorbed influences from twentieth-century avant-garde movements, art history, Joseph Beuys, Julio González and Giorgio de Chirico.
In the 1980s, Navarro acquired a former drugstore warehouse in Mislata’s historic Morería district and turned it into his studio. For more than four decades, the 1,000-square-metre space was where he developed much of his sculptural production, particularly his large-format works.
The building became the Casa-Taller of the Fundación Miquel Navarro, which opened last June. Navarro donated 400 works to the project, intended to preserve, display and disseminate his artistic legacy. Its collection, comprising more than 400 pieces, covers the different stages of his career and the range of materials, formats and visual languages he used over more than half a century.
Navarro described himself as a “free thinker” rather than a man of either the political left or right. His reflections on urban development also informed his work: he criticised the damage caused by speculative construction while defending imaginative architecture and well-designed skyscrapers that could coexist with their surroundings.
The Casa-Taller was his final major project. Navarro said its purpose was to keep his work together, prevent it from becoming dispersed through private sales and allow visitors to develop a coherent understanding of his artistic career.
Sources: El País Cultura.