Miquel Barceló: Obra sobre papel 1979–1999 — Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, 1999

Published to accompany a major retrospective at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, this comprehensive volume surveys two prolific decades of Miquel Barceló’s works on paper. With 388 pages of full-colour reproductions, it traces the evolution of an artist who has turned drawing into an act of sedimentation—where time, gesture, and matter fuse.

From the volcanic stains of ink to delicate watercolours, Barceló’s graphic work resists containment. His recurring motifs—beasts, bones, oceans, libraries—appear and mutate across formats, invoking both the primal and the cerebral. The book captures his shift from conceptual beginnings to an embodied figuration, where excess becomes structure, and where every mark is both ruin and bloom.

Designed with the scale and clarity of a proper museum catalogue, Obra sobre papel stands as the definitive reference on Barceló’s works on paper. Less a companion to the paintings than a parallel cosmos, it affirms drawing as a field of experimentation, intimacy, and myth-making.

Technical Sheet
Title: Miquel Barceló: Obra sobre papel 1979–1999
Artist / Author: Miquel Barceló
Date: 1999
Technique / Printing Method: Offset
Medium / Materials: Hardcover
Dimensions (cm): 28 × 30
Language: Spanish
Pages: 388
Publisher / Editor: Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía
ISBN: 978-84-8003-180-6
Condition: Very Good