Miguel Berrocal

(b Villanueva de Algaidas, M?laga, 28 Sept 1933). Spanish sculptor. From 1951 to 1953 he studied mathematics and physics at the University of Madrid, developing an interest in geometry that he later applied to his art. He also studied art with the sculptor Angel Ferrant and was a free student at the Escuela de Bellas Artes de San Fernando in Madrid. He first worked as a painter, exhibiting his pictures from 1952, but after moving to Rome and then to Paris he became interested in ceramics and decided to devote himself to sculpture. In works such as Split Box (iron, h. 600 mm, 1959; see 1987 exh. cat., p. 35) and Sarcophagus (iron, h. 1.3 m, 1959; Bergamo, Lorenzelli priv. col., see Marchiori, p. 118) he first suggested the possibility of using repeated and combined shapes. Such methods soon became essential to his stylistic vocabulary, which generally took the form of abstracted figures composed of interlocked units, as in Samson (bronze in ten sections, h. 290 mm, 1963; see 1987 exh. cat., p. 62).

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