Juan F. Béjar Spanish, b. 1946

 Juan Fernández Béjar (1946, Málaga) is a self-taught Spanish artist who has developed a highly personal style within contemporary figurative art. His work is often described as conceptual symbolism. He learned his craft through direct observation of the masters in museums such as the Prado. In the 1960s, he spent several years in Nuremberg, Germany, where he broadened his artistic horizons.

In 1978, he was elected a member of the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Telmo, but resigned a year later due to dissatisfaction with its conservative stance. Shortly afterwards, he co-founded the Colectivo Palmo (1979-1987), an avant-garde group that offered a modern counterbalance to traditional art in Málaga.

Béjar is often placed in the tradition of Magical Realism and Surrealism, but his work is more deeply rooted in Spanish cultural history. His technique, characterised by extreme precision, glaze layers and transparency, is strongly reminiscent of the Flemish Primitives and their influence on Spanish art.
In the 1970s, he became obsessed with the downfall of the Spanish Habsburgs. His characters, often pale children, refer directly to the portraits of Velázquez (think of “Las Meninas”), but with a disturbing, modern twist.

Influenced by the literature of Kafka and the psychoanalysis of Freud, Béjar transformed his realism into a dream world. Instead of simply illustrating dreams, he creates a “parallel reality” in which the characters (often dolls or children with “dead” eyes) radiate a deep existential loneliness. Critics also see in his early work the dramatic intensity of the Generation of '98, a group of Spanish writers and thinkers who grappled with Spain's identity and decline.

Like many established Spanish artists, his paintings are frequently found in the corporate collections of major Spanish banks and insurance companies, which historically invested heavily in the nation's cultural heritage. Besides this his work can be found in private ciollections wolrdwide plus at the Museum of Málaga, the Unicaja Foundation, the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Telmo, Ateneo de Málaga.