Born in Valencia, Spain in 1930, Genovés was a distinct voice who advocated for political change from the dictatorship of Franco, and his works created a stir in a country run under the regime. Among his original artistic influences were the films of Russian director Sergei Eisenstein, notably Alexander Nevsky and Battleship Potemkin, which also had an impact on the painter Francis Bacon.

Since the 1960s, Juan Genovés has explored depictions of crowds. Paintings by Genovés present bird’s-eye views of scenes in which no buildings, roads, trees or clues to a common place are visible, thus creating a landscape of people in motion. As a child in Valencia, Genovés experienced the Spanish Civil War in a traumatic way. Memories of crowds of people running for shelter still distantly inform his work, although in recent years his compositions are less existential in tone but still cast a critical eye toward the tension that arises in hoards of people.

Genovés creates his distinctive figures from thickly applied acrylic paint that protrudes from the surfaces. The lines that reinforce the picture plane can be read as breaks in the image or as topographies encouraging the directional movement of the crowd. The cast shadow is an important element, with each figure being anchored by its unique shadow. In addition, beads and other small objects found by the artist are attached to the figures on the canvas and contribute to the individuality and character of each.

Paintings by Juan Genovés  are a part of more than 60 museums and important public collections, especially  in the United States and Europe, including The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL; Centre National d’Art Contemporain, Paris, France; The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain; Museum Moderner Kunst, Vienna, and Museum fur Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt, Germany. (Marlborough press-release)