FRANCISCO LEIRO LOIS (Cambados, Pontevedra, 1957). "Untitled". Wood sculpture. Provenance: Puchol Gallery, Valencia. Measurements: 190 x 55 x 50 cm. Francisco Leiro began his training as a self-taught artist, influenced by popular Galician imagery and by his father, a stonemason by profession. He then moved to Santiago de Compostela to enter the city s School of Arts and Crafts, and later completed his studies at the School of Fine Arts in Madrid. In 1975 he held his first exhibition, at the Cultural Society of Cambados, and during this decade he formed part of the artistic group Foga, while the influence of surrealism was accentuated in his production. At the beginning of the eighties he took part in the Atlántica collective exhibitions, which brought together the emerging generation that was to renew Galician art. Soon, before the end of the decade, he was a constant presence in artistic circles in Spain, Europe and the United States; in 1985 he represented Spain at the São Paulo Biennial, and the following year he took part for the first time in the ARCO fair in Madrid, where he has shown his work regularly ever since. In 1988 he settled in New York, and that same year he received his first public commissions: "My sofas" (Pontevedra) and "Coloso" (Palacio de la Magdalena in Santander). The following year he was selected for the 1st Mostra Unión Fenosa in A Coruña, where his work "Torso Sentado" (Seated Torso) was acquired by the company. Also in 1989 he carried out another important public commission, "Balboas III" (El Ferrol). In fact, from this moment on, his public projects were repeated: "Nave" (Santiago de Compostela, 1990), "Sireno" (Vigo, 1991), "Puertas de la Torre de Hércules" (A Coruña, 1992), "Porta Santa" (Santiago de Compostela Cathedral, 1993), "Homenaje a Castelao" (Santiago de Compostela, 1995), "Bañista no Areal" (Vigo, 1997), "Miarritz" (Biarritz, France, 1999), "Marzo del 73" (Fene, A Coruña, 1999), "Astronauta" (Valdemoro, Madrid, 2001), "Vértigo" (Autovía M50, Madrid, 2004), "Dama de Navalcarnero" (Navalcarnero, Madrid, 2007) and "Simeón sentado" (Torre Espacio, Madrid, 2007). Having consolidated his international career, in 1990 he began to work for the Marlborough Gallery in New York, where he had a solo exhibition of sculpture that year. Since then he has held solo exhibitions in this gallery as well as in others in Spain, Portugal, the United States, Chile, Buenos Aires, Brazil and El Salvador, as well as taking part in important group shows and fairs in Europe and the United States, in such prominent centres as the Palais Royal in Paris (2001) and the MNCARS in Madrid (2006). He has also been awarded the Castelao Medal by the Xunta de Galicia (2000) and the Medal for Fine Arts by the CEOE (2003). Francisco Leiro s plastic language has gone through different periods, but he has always remained faithful to a totally personal expressionist figuration, closely linked to traditional Galician popular sculpture. His sculpture also displays a certain archaic air, a hieratism of Egyptian and Mesopotamian heritage, which links harmoniously with the monumentality of Michelangelo and German expressionism. He is currently represented at the MACBA in Barcelona, the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Patio Herreriano in Valladolid, the Marugame Hirai in Kagawe (Japan), the Stedelijk in Amsterdam, the Fundación Caixanova, the Museo de Castrelo in Vigo, the Museo de Bellas Artes in Álava, the Instituto de Crédito Oficial in Madrid, Grounds for Sculpture in New Jersey, the collections-foundations La Caixa, Coca-Cola and Caja de Madrid, the Centro Gallego de Arte Contemporáneo in Santiago de Compostela, the Centro Cultural São Laurenço in Almancil (Portugal), the Asociación de los Amigos del Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía and the Akron Art Museum in Ohio (USA), among other collections.Among other public and private collections.