Heras Sanz, Arturo

Artur Heras i Sanz (Játiva, Valencia; 1945)1 is a Spanish painter, sculptor and designer. He studied at the Faculty of Fine Arts of San Carlos in Valencia. Between 1980 and 1995 he directed the Sala Parpalló, where international artists such as Robert Frank, David Lynch, Capa, Klossowsky, Wols, Walker Evans, André Mason... were shown. In 1964, when he was very young, he won first prize for painting at the 5th International Salon of March with a painting that critics pointed out as one of the first manifestations of the renewal of plastic language, known as New Realism and Pop-art. During the Valencian 1960s, a group exhibition with Manuel Boix and Rafael Armengol, attracted the attention of a young Tomás Llorens who pointed it out as one of the first manifestations of Valencian pop art.2 His exhibitions include those entitled Bandera, bandera (Flag, flag) at the Joan Miró Foundation in Barcelona in 1980 and the anthological exhibition held at the IVAM in Valencia in 1995. In 2016, La Nau at the University of Valencia dedicated a major retrospective exhibition to him, curated by Josep Salvador, which highlighted his contribution to iconographic modernity, which he has developed over the decades through different languages, painting, sculpture and graphic design. His sculptures are exhibited in public spaces in Valencia, such as the Turia gardens and the Facultats metro station, and at the Jaume I University in Castellón.