José María Sicilia

Madrid, 1954

José María Sicilia was born in Madrid in 1954, the city where he studied Fine Arts at Escuela de Bellas Artes of Universidad Complutense, finishing in 1979. Just a year later he moved to Paris, where he developed various works with material and expressionist tendencies, of great repercussion on the Spanish pictorial scene, in the same way as Miquel Barceló and Miguel Ángel Campano, also residents in Paris. He exhibits individually and collectively for the first time in this city, and later on in New York, where he lives between 1985 and 1986. His presence in these two countries, added to Spain, helps his work to acquire international recognition.

Even so, it is from the works on flowers, begun in 1985, that consolidate him as a recognized artist in the Spanish State. A notable year is 1987, as the Bordeaux CAPC and various Spanish museums dedicate an exhibition to it. Two years later he wins Premio Nacional de Artes Plásticas, an important Spanish prize. The 90s took his artistic work towards drawing, especially through the use of waxes, and the sculptural installation, of great symbolism.

We can find Sicilia’s work around the world, on a big quantity of important museums like Guggenheim and MoMA in New York, Musée d’Art Contemporain in Toulouse, or different in Spain, like MACBA, IVAM or Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía.

List of artworks

Flor marco negro , 1987

Press articles