When I arrived to Paris (…) I was, at that time, very intrigued by abstraction, as I had been before by Cubism. At the same time I realised that those neo-Cubist still lifes were beginning to lose interest for me; so I began to simplify the composition of those still lifes and to remove the elements that made up a more or less figurative vision, paying much more attention to the form itself and not to what it represented.
Pablo Palazuelo studied architecture in Madrid and at the Royal Institute of British Architects in Oxford, where he graduated from the Intermediate Exams in 1936, specializing in mechanics and design. This academic experience in Oxford determined his entire artistic career. In 1939 Palazuelo decided to abandon architecture and devote himself fully to painting. Later on in his life, however, there were regular crossovers with this discipline. His conviction in a necessary integration of the arts – which was influenced and motivated by the knowledge of the Art and Crafts movement in England-, laid the foundation for a constant exercise of transdisciplinary thinking.
In 1973 he exhibited for the first time in Spain. In 1977 he exhibited his sculptural work, first in Barcelona, at the Maeght Gallery, and later on, in December of the same year, at Galería Theo, Madrid. In 1996 he receives the CEOE Prize for the Arts. On December 10, 1999, he was awarded the National Prize for the Plastic Arts Ex Aequo, together with the sculptor Cristina Iglesias, by the Spanish Ministry of Education and Culture. In 2004 he was awarded with the Premio Velázquez de Artes Plásticas. In 1995 the Reina Sofía Museum dedicated a major retrospective exhibition to Pablo Palazuelo, followed by a second one in 2005; Pablo Palazuelo:1995-2005. The latter reviewed the last ten years of his artistic production and thus completed the first retrospective.In 2006, the MACBA Museum of Barcelona dedicated an extensive retrospective to Pablo Palazuelo, curated by Manuel Borja-Villel and Teresa Grandas, which went to the Guggenheim Museum of Bilbao.
Pablo Palazuelo died in Madrid on 3 October 2007.
