Manolo Millares

Initially influenced by Paul Klee and Joan Miró, the Spanish abstract painter Manolo Millares began his self-taught career in his native Canary Islands, where he enjoyed great success. He was co-founder, in 1949, of the magazine Planas de Poesia and directed the series of art monographs Argueros.

He made his first collages in 1954 out of sackcloth, ceramics, wood, and sand, and was closely aligned with the painter Antoni Tàpies. He was a follower of the Art Informel movement, which eschewed traditional approaches to creating art, and he was soon incorporating burns in his collage paintings, somewhat akin to Alberto Burri's work moving towards Arte Povera in Italy. He was co-founder with Antonio Saura, Luis Feito and Rafael Canogar of the enormously influential avant-garde group El Paso (The Step) in Madrid in 1957.

Millares attained an international reputation by the early 1960s, having a solo show at the prominent Pierre Matisse Gallery in New York in 1961.