PITA Gerardo

Born in Madrid in 1950, Gerardo Pita's artistic vocation emerges early in his student years at the capital's French Lyceum. In 1963 and 1964 he wins gold and bronze medals, respectively, at the children's drawing contest. His passion for drawing encourages him to study Architecture, until 1972, when he decides to devote himself exclusively to painting.

His hyperrealist, cosmopolitan and intimate perspective soon stands out among the art circuits, especially outside his native Spain. Pita holds his first individual exhibition at the Vandres Gallery of Madrid in 1976. Many other exhibitions are then to follow at the main international art centres, from London's Fisher Fine Art Limited Gallery to New York's Staempfli Gallery, Genoa Financial Club, Barcelona's Eude Gallery, Hollis Taggart Galleries (Washington and New York), as well as in the Leandro Navarro Gallery of Madrid, where the artist's work is individually exhibited in 2002, 2005 and 2012. In 1992 his works are shown in the Art Exhibition of Tokyo, and in 2005 his work returns once more to Japan for the Exhibition of Spanish Art held at the Prefectural Art Museum of Nagasaki.

In 1992 he receives the first Prize awarded by the Antonio Camuñas Foundation, and in 1993 his work is presented in ARCO with the Levy Gallery of Madrid.

As one of the best-known realist Spanish painters, his rural and urban landscapes, his aerial views, his famous balls of wool, fishing nets and portraits (including a portrait of Baron Thyssen painted by assignment) are comprised in important public and private collections. Some of them include the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) of New York, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Arkansas Arts Foundation Collection, E.F. Hutton Company Collection, Seavest Collection of Contemporary Realism (New York), Baron Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection (Lugano), Argentaria Collection (Madrid), Palacete Villa Magdalena Collection (Oviedo), Josep Suñol Collection (Barcelona), Rene Morales Collection (Nicaragua) and Mauricio Fernandez Garza Collection (Mexico).

Professor Juan J. Luna, coinciding with a recent exhibition of the painter at the Leandro Navarro Gallery in Madrid, published a book (Autor Tecnico Editions) which goes over the work of this artist.