LUIS FEITO

Madrid (Spain), 1929 – Rascafría, Madrid (Spain), 2021

Luis Feito López was born into a humble family of butchers in Madrid. After a difficult childhood marked by the Civil War and the harsh post-war years, he entered a seminary, where he spent a year and a half pursuing a religious vocation. Encouraged by his drawing teacher, he enrolled at the School of Arts and Crafts in 1949, where he discovered his true calling in painting.

In 1950, Feito entered the San Fernando Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Madrid, balancing his art classes with work in the family business.

Before finishing his final year at the Academy, he held his first exhibition at the Buchholz Gallery and won a scholarship offered by the French Institute in Madrid to travel to Paris. He began his studies in avant-garde painting in the French capital. In Paris, he met other avant-garde artists and became acquainted with new developments taking place outside Franco’s Spain. He had an exhibition at the Galerie Arnaud in Paris, and the sale of some of his works enabled him to continue his training in the City of Light. That same year, he took part in the first Biennial of the Mediterranean, achieving his first significant international success by earning third place.

Although Feito intended to settle permanently in Paris, he maintained close contact with the Spanish cultural scene and with friends from his years at the San Fernando Royal Academy. This allowed him to participate in the formation of the group El Paso in 1957, alongside artists such as Antonio Saura, Rafael Canogar, Manuel Rivera, Manuel Viola, Juana Francés, and Manolo Millares, among others.

That same year, he was selected to participate in the fourth São Paulo Biennial and the following year in the twenty-ninth Venice Biennial. Both events were successful for Spanish painters, enabling them to exhibit at MoMA and the Guggenheim in New York the following year.

In 1981 and 1982, Feito moved to Montreal, Canada, and then settled in New York until the early 1990s. From then on, he alternated between Spain and the United States.

Feito died on February 7, 2021, in Rascafría, due to complications from COVID-19.

His artistic career can be summarized as an initial phase of figuration, followed by a brief cubist stage, which matured into brilliant abstraction.

In his work, one can perceive an explosion of colours and textures, generally superimposed and concentrated in a circular form in the centre of the canvas, giving the impression of a powerful skylight. His palette initially consisted of blacks, whites, greys, and ochres, but by the late 1960s, he introduced a dynamic red into his range of neutrals.

Feito’s works are exhibited in the most prestigious national and international museums.

Exhibited Work:

“Untitled” Drawing