ÓSCAR DOMÍNGUEZ

Óscar Domínguez spent his childhood and adolescence in the Canary Islands and in 1927 moved to Paris to deliver bananas, helping his father in his business.  And there he stayed until his death except returning for several occasions, which included: military service (1927), his father’s death (1931), Santa Cruz de Tenerife Circle of Fine Arts exhibition organised by Gaceta de Arte (1933), an outstanding magazine of Eduardo Westerdahl; and then the Civil War. While living in Paris he painted several amateur pictures and then, after the death of his father, started to work as a publicist.  In 1934 he gets acquainted with a group of surrealists - Yves Tanguy, Man Ray, Paul Éluard, etc. and establishes relations with Spanish painters (Baltasar Lobo, Antoni Clavé, Bores, Pedro Flores and others). His works of that period were influenced by Dali and are based on the Canary landscapes, e.g. his Electrosexual Sewing Machine (Máquina de coser electrosexual, 1935) or Cave of Guanches (Cueva de guanches, 1935). The following is said about the period of his great contribution to surrealism: Decalcomania invented by him (pictures obtained at random by pressing a stain of a dye between two plates), origins of which can be found in the dentrites of George Sand; the Objects, some of which were demonstrated in the surrealistic display in the Paris in Galería Charles Ratton (1936), like Péregrinations de George Hugnet (1935) and L’arrivée de la Belle Epoque; cosmic landscapes in which his memories of the Islands combine with space, like in Lancelot 28º-7º (1938) or “litochronic” surfaces showing crystallization of time.

Character with a bicycle, around 1947-50

During the World War II he travels to Marseilles, making attempts to go to the USA. There he collaborates with the group of surrealists, La Main à Plume, gets acquainted with Breton, Duchamp, Ernt, etc., and starts the series of Collages colletifs y Cadavres exquis. Afterwards he breaks his relations with Breton and gets under the influence of De Chirico, - and thus comes his metaphysical period (1942-1943). Later Óscar Domínguez becomes friends with Picasso (1944-1948), and so starts his Picassian period with Femme peignant (1945) or Picador (1950), and soon after that a new technique is born, the triple-trait, which constitutes his schematic period (1949-1953).

Femme nue, around 1947

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