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Alvar Sunol Munoz-Ramos was born on January 29, 1935, in Montgat, a Catalan fishing village on the Mediterranean coast near Barcelona. He started
painting oils at age twelve and at age seventeen was accepted at the Escuela Superior de Bellas Artes de San Jorge, the prestigious fine art school in Barcelona. Before graduating from the Belles Artes, he gave his first solo exhibition at Galleries Layetana in Barcelona in 1957. Alvar also won the Bolsa de Viaje Alhambra de Granada, a summer scholarship
study trip to Granada. At age 18, Alvar entered a painting in a competition for the Young Painters Prize sponsored by the City of Barcelona. His painting won the grand prize and it is now in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art, Barcelona, Spain.
Due to his early artistic successes, Alvar received many invitations for shows in other Spanish cities. During his military service, he submitted one of his canvases for the Institut Francais annual painting competition in Barcelona. The Institut Francais awarded him the grand prize and a scholarship to study in Paris. Alvar arrived in Paris to paint in 1959. He met Juan Fuentes, a fellow Spaniard and director of the prestigious Parisian Galerie Drouant. Fuentes encouraged Alvar in his painting and
brought Alvar’s first group of Paris oil paintings to the gallery. Fuentes’ gallery sold the paintings in one week.
In 1960 Alvar returned to Barcelona to marry his childhood sweetheart, Rosella Berenguer. They returned to Paris and lived there for ten years. Alvar’s paintings were exhibited in the United States for the first time at the Monede Gallery, New York in 1962. Alvar produced his first original
lithographs for a one man show at Galerie Drouant in 1963.
Since a decisive solo exhibition in Paris in 1963, Alvar has exhibited regularly throughout Europe, the United States, Canada and Japan. In 1978 a
retrospective exhibition of his lithographs was held by the Musee Hyaninthe Riguad in Perpignan,
France. His lithographs, paintings and sculptures have been presented in major shows at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts, Salt Lake City in 1982 and
the Wichita Art Museum in 1983. In 2000, l’Abadia de Sant Miguel del Fai in Catalonia, Spain mounted a retrospective exhibit honoring Alvar’s
contribution to the Spanish art community. In 2001 three additional retrospective exhibits were mounted: two by the Instituto Cervantes in
Toulouse and Bordeaux, France, and one in Athens, Georgia at
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