Constellation, Regards sur la création espagnole, 1945-2025

Opera Gallery Paris

22 May - 17 June 2026

With 'Constellation' Opera Gallery Paris presents a selection of works from the Spanish art scene spanning the period from 1945 to 2025. Far from offering a linear narrative, this journey invites a freer reflection on the evolution of modern and contemporary Spanish art.

The works brought together here, drawn from our collection, stand as milestones in a history that is both collective and personal. The highlight enduring elements—the importance of material, gesture, and memory—while also underscoring the profound transformations that have accompanied the country’s political, social, and cultural shifts. From the shadow of dictatorship to a free and plural contemporary scene, Spanish art is presented here in all its richness, through a sensitive and vibrant approach.

Picasso as a milestone

The year 1945, which marks our starting point, unfolds in a Spain still deeply scarred by the Civil War and, since 1939, immersed in Franco’s dictatorship. In this context of cultural isolation and strict censorship, the figure of Pablo Picasso—even in exile—emerges as an essential point of reference. His work, already universal in scope, embodies both a radical modernity and a keen political awareness. The expressive power of his forms and colors opens new paths for rethinking Spanish painting and sculpture. Picasso thus becomes a guiding figure for several generations of artists, not only through his visual language but also through his stance as a committed artist.

Masters of Spanish 20th and 21st century art

The decades that followed saw the emergence of a generation of artists confronted with the necessity of creating under constraint. Antonio Saura, Antoni Tàpies, and Rafael Canogar—major figures of the postwar period—developed an informal, gestural vocabulary that expressed both a troubled interiority and tensions and fractures of their time.

Juan Genovés, a deeply committed artist and opponent of the regime in power, questions the mechanisms of dictatorship by contrasting these two concepts. His anonymous crowds, figures in motion or suspended in an abstract space, express collective aspirations for freedom and democracy. His work closely accompanies, almost in real time, the transformations of Spanish society during the democratic transition initiated after the death of Franco in 1975.

Manolo Valdés, a key figure in contemporary Spanish art, began a solo career in 1981. The artist developped a powerful and immediately recognizable body of work, skillfully mastering a wide range of materials with expressive textures. He reinterprets masterpieces of the past—from Velázquez’s Las Meninas to Picasso’s Cubism and Matisse’s portraits of women. His work engages in a constant dialogue between past and present, illustrating how contemporary creation reclaims its heritage while projecting itself toward the future.

Contemporary Spanish artists

After the end of the dictatorship and the advent of democracy, the Movida Madrileña emerged in the early 1980s as a genuine cultural and social movement that spread throughout the country. This effervescent spirit fostered formal experimentation, the blending of disciplines, and openness to international trends, marking a lasting renewal of Spanish creation. These effects endure in the following decades, with a generation of contemporary artists working in a free and globalized environment, inheriting this energy.

Dadid Magán, Xevi Solà, Cristina Babiloni, Adrián Navarro, and Miguel Sainz Ojeda challenge contemporary codes with great freedom. Despite the diversity of their artistic languages, these artists share an unrestrained relationship with art history, which they neither seek to reject nor to quote directly, but rather to integrate as an available vocabulary.