From this point his creative energy progressively diminished. This was his dénouement. Mired in understandable despondence, and aggravated by his living circumstances, it seemed as if he heard the fates decree that his life’s work in painting would never re-emerge. But his aunt, Montse, would not give up. In 1979 she convinced him to hold a solo exhibition at the government’s well-known Galerías Syra in Antonio Gaudí’s iconic Casa Battló in Barcelona. Critics lauded the Torino paintings, citing their “chromatic exuberance,” and “absolute control over color.” Surprisingly, one even got him to speak of his having been inspired by the linearity and shapes of the Gothic wall paintings in the National Art Museum of Catalonia in Barcelona depicting the conquest of Majorca. Despite the accolades, Cuatrecasas only briefly attended the opening. Again, he showed no interest in selling.

Cuatrecasas not only ignored the substantive critical praise for his work, but he suffered a series of devastating setbacks during the last twenty-five years of his life that forever prevented his return to painting. First, he battled alcoholism, ultimately achieving sobriety. But he was a chain smoker, too, and in declining health he suffered from tuberculosis. Just days after his father passed away in Washington, so did Montse. Having lost his Guardian Angel, he also had to vacate her apartment. He moved to a small apartment that his parents had purchased many years earlier but he had no studio space at all. His brother Pedro wrote, “He remained despondent in his new apartment, unable to paint in such a restricted space, although he often wished and visualized painting again. That inner fervor was still there.” It was as if the circumstances imposed upon him dictated that that his life’s work in painting had become a chapter that had truly ended.

Finally, his last ten years saw him fighting the prostatic cancer that ended his life. But just before he passed, Pedro was going through papers in his brother’s Barcelona apartment when to his surprise he discovered a stack of unpaid bills from Security Storage in Washington, D.C. threatening to dispose of the contents in two rooms. Unknown to the family, Cuatrecasas had since about 1974 made several shipments of about 400 hundred large canvases carefully rolled up in heavy-duty kraft tubes, likely in anticipation of more exhibitions following Houston. “Like most details of Gil’s reclusive life, the existence of the Torino paintings was a total surprise. But there they were — rolled up in batches of two to six canvases that weighed up to 100 pounds per roll. Some canvases measured 22 feet long, and none had been displayed in the United States.”5

Art forensics has helped to unravel the mystery of Cuatrecasas’s technique. Stylistic analysis has shown the maturation of his vision. And art history will place him as a virtuoso of color. But unraveling the mystery of why such a prolific master would stop at the peak of his powers is far more complex. He was both an intellectual and a spiritualist who revealed a depth of character. Earning money from his art was never a motivation and he harbored a disdain for material things. He was reclusive, too, avoiding social occasions with people unknown to him. His sister, Teresa, often remarked that he should have lived in a monastery.

The revelation of Cuatrecasas’s chapter in the history of late 20th century painting is not only long overdue but brings together the artistic spirits of both America and Spain. In this process of discovery one gains a historical perspective that places him firmly in the ranks among those few brilliant colorists of his generation. Here was an artist who was never motivated to garner money or fame from his art. But he made this discovery possible only because forty years ago he cared so deeply about preserving his extraordinary collection of paintings.

Peter Hastings Falk