Andreu Alfaro, the author of the UAB columns, dies
14/12/2012
Alfaro was born in 1929 in Valencia. Self-taught and connected to the Parpalló Group, he started out as a draughtsman and painter in the late fifties and held his first individual exhibitions in 1957 and 1958.
From then on, his work went through different periods marked by the use of different materials (tin, wire and wood in the sixties, coloured plexiglass in the seventies, limestone and marble in the eighties, etc.). He retained, however, an idea of artistic creation as deriving from industrial processes and materials, and that sculpture should symbolise collective attitudes or arguments.
His work can be found in several Spanish cities (among them, Valencia, Madrid and Barcelona) and in Germany, where he developed much of his career. Among his principal works, apart from the UAB columns, are, for example, la Porta de la Il·lustració in Madrid, la Columna Olímpica a la Vila Olímpica de Barcelona, the monument to he millenium of Catalonia in Prat de Llobregat, Life Force in Mainz and the sculptures facing the Law Courts in Cologne and Frankfurt.
Among the awards Alfaro received for his work, are the National Prize for the Visual Arts, the Jaume I Prize and the Alfons Roig Prize. In 2008, the Reial Acadèmia Catalana de Belles Arts de Sant Jordi made him an honorary member.