In his visual journey of six decades, Julio Alpuy has traversed a path that explores most of the major tenets of twentieth-century modernism. Born in Uruguay, Alpuy is one of the most innovative artists among the group of avant-garde Latin Americans who worked with the Uruguayan master Joaquin Torres-Garcia at E1 Taller TorresGarcia ("School of the South") during the 1940s. Alpuy, who worked with Torres-Garcia from 1940 to 1949, developed his own variation of constructivism in painting and sculpture. This he refined as he traveled and studied in Latin America, Europe, and the Middle East during the l950s. In 1961 he moved to New York City, where he now lives and works.

Alpuy's early work, which reflects his modernist training at E1 Taller, reorders and transforms nature into symbolic pictographs structured within a grid. Alpuy has continued to personalize and extend the concepts of Torres-Garcia, inventing his own legendary narratives. Like Torres-Garcia, he draws from the discoveries of cubism and the neoplastic structure of Mondrian, using vertical and horizontal lines to divide his painted and carved constructions. With great originality, Alpuy creates paintings that have the haptic quality of sculpture and sculpture that is painterly, often working with primary colors.

In 1963, two years after Alpuy arrived in New York City, the definition of the grid began to disappear from his work. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, his paintings and sculpture appeared less visually structured, but his deep understanding of the use of classical proportions and his implied verticals and horizontals form his compositions even when they are invisible. Alpuy constructs his figures, landscapesf and still-life objects to invent a world that extends beyond specific geography-creating a universal landscape.

Alpuy has exhibited in all of the group shows of the artists from E1 Taller; therefore an exhibition of his work also continues the documentation of that school. Although his artistic identity has been closely linked to Torres-Garcia, Alpuy's work merits serious independent consideration. Presenting an opportunity to view a broad range of his painting and sculpture, this retrospective exhibition at the Sidney Mishkin Gallery reveals a universal vision of great power and insight. Julio Alpuy has invented a marvelous world that spans six decades and crosses four continents.

Sandra Kraskin

© 1996 Mishkin Gallery, Baruch College