On Thursday, the Instituto Cervantes in New York inaugurated the exhibition Esteban Vicente: The Painter of Reality, a showcase bringing together 18 works by the Segovia-born artist created between 1940 and 1996; the exhibition will remain open to the public until January 2027.
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The exhibited pieces highlight the tangible reality that underpinned his work—a reality Vicente transformed into his own artistic language: abstraction. Doldán emphasized the artist’s rejection of artificiality, noting that if there is one defining characteristic of the Spanish personality or Spain’s pictorial tradition, it is a sense of reality.
A native of Turégano (Segovia) and a supporter of the Second Spanish Republic, the painter moved to the United States at the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War and lived in New York State until his death in 2001. There, he became the first Spaniard to join the New York School—an art movement focused primarily on Abstract Expressionism that included figures such as Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko.
After Vicente, José Guerrero (from Granada) also joined this school, making them the only two Spaniards in the movement. According to the curators, the artist found it difficult to adopt this language, and he actually did so through Cubism—a style reflected in one of the introductory works: an oil-on-canvas painting in blue tones titled Untitled, created in the 1940s.
El Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía convoca la beca de investigación Esteban Vicente-MNCARShttps://t.co/84e9zZbwBz pic.twitter.com/m9qrGAbHPs
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The text reads, “The Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía announces the Esteban Vicente-MNCARS research grant.”
The Cervantes exhibition has two components: the European leg, featuring 33 works shown in cities such as Rome and Warsaw, and the New York leg, comprising a smaller selection on loan from the Harriet and Esteban Vicente Foundation. Eren Johnson, who also curated the exhibition, noted that the selected works embody the translation of reality into pictorial space and convey the weight of the great Spanish painting traditions.
Key pieces include Alison Series: Landscape Yellow and several collages featuring Cubist elements, as well as personal items such as a small painting dedicated to his wife, Harriet Vicente, and photographs of the couple at their home in Bridgehampton, Long Island.
Johnson emphasized that Vicente is a painter’s painter who is better known in Spain, and expressed hope that the exhibition would introduce his work to the New York public. “It is also very important that the exhibition is being held at the Cervantes, as it highlights his cultural roots and the significance of Spanish traditions within his culture,” he noted.
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