Bonifacio Alfonso

San Sebastián, 1933 – San Sebastián, 2011

Bonifacio Alfonso was one of the most personal artists in Spanish painting of the second half of the 20th century. A painter and printmaker with an extraordinary gift for drawing, he created a visual universe that is hard to classify, somewhere between Informalist abstraction, expressionism and a figuration with dreamlike echoes.

His career was closely tied to Cuenca, a city he was drawn to by the atmosphere surrounding the Museum of Spanish Abstract Art. There he formed relationships with Fernando Zóbel, Antonio Saura, Antonio Lorenzo, Manuel Millares, Gustavo Torner and other leading figures of the Spanish avant-garde. It was Antonio Lorenzo who introduced him to printmaking, a discipline that came to occupy a central place in his output.

Bonifacio’s work is characterised by a boundless imagination, vigorous drawing and the appearance of biomorphic forms, creatures and fantastical landscapes. His personal blend of humour, imagination and expressiveness made him an entirely independent creator. In 1993 he received the National Printmaking Prize and in 2005 the Arts Prize of the Community of Madrid, awards that confirm the importance of a career that is essential to understanding the renewal of Spanish painting and printmaking.