Introspection 1953-1960 | Eusebio Sempere

No title, 1953: Gouache on Bristol Board, 65’5 x 50’5 cm.

This second stage of his staying in Paris is the moment when Sempere enters a phase of needed inwardness. After the initial opening, it was necessary to verify what was vibrating within him, what he had assimilated and what had been left on the way of a sincere search to discover what was his path in art. He meets Vasarely, Soto, Arp, Agam and Shöffer. These new contacts shelter his current stage and provide him with a reference framework to his works.
Meticulously he entered his own and authentic space; it’s the time of locking himself up within the chrysalis in order to live the transformation.
Meticulously he entered his own and authentic space; it’s the time of locking himself up within the chrysalis in order to live the transformation.

I used to paint at night what I called “experiments”. What I mean is I couldn’t show them because they were not paintings for exposing. I filled the surface of black paper with concentric circles in white, or filling those circles with parallel lines…

Biography notes. Eusebio Sempere. An Anthology 1953-1981. IVAM.

It is possible that I loose my life in it, but I think it noble to insist on what one believes is true.

…About his works of these years. 1955. Sempere. Josep Melià.

It was some sort of personal taste on which you, a as total entity, were within. You heard things, talked about them, thought them over, made them again, broke them… I don’t know, it was something that was yours, there was no possibility for the creative process to become frivolous at any point.
…they were very modest papers, gouaches, small things, I had my reservations. Everybody else was making quite large stuff. When Denise René arranged the Mouvement display, logically I wasn’t invited. As they had more pieces, not so simple essays, and as time went by, they let me a bit of space at the collectives. It was probably the last corner. But I didn’t mind that much, I knew I was humble in what I did and how I did it (Please don’t think me pedantic). The exposing matter was marginal.

Conversation with Sempere. Guadalimar, 8. 10/12/1975

Doc: Vasarely