Critical Acclaim for Sansó

"Sanso shows attractively wishful landscapes and sea-coast scenes, some of the latter, painted in the Philippines and featuring cathedral-like constructions for trapping fish at low tide. His approach to Surrealism is most evident in his pictures of flowers or fruit, which suggest antropomorphic still lifes of the 16th century Italian painter Arcimboldo. These subaqueous blue or green accumulations are the high point of this oddly pleasing show."
- John Ashberty, New York Herald Tribune (International Edition).

"At the Trafford Gallery an exhibition of pictures, predominantly in pen and ink and water-color, by Juvenal Sanso, a Spanish-born painter who grew up in the Philippines and now lives in Paris. The paintings reveal a preference for rock forms and plants and sponge-like formations, depicted in dense techniques, reminiscent of Ernst, with the matiere as much as the ostensible subject contributing to a mysterious overall effect.

This density is at times almost choking and some of the pictures seem like a production of surrealist William Dyce. But they are redeemed by a certain reticence and a skill that is evident without being obtrusive. In some instances Sehor Sanso'spaintings seem to gain additional strength through the implicit influence of Oriental art.

There are some semi-architectural fantasies in the exhibition, and one in particular that looks like a cross between an intricate palace of cards and a congested Neopolitan slum. It is a picture that is crowded, but it just avoids looking cluttered because the forms are set down with that feeling for summary notation characteristic of Chinese and Japanese paintings."
- A. E. Popham, Burlington's Magazine

"Juvenal Sanso was born in Barcelona, Spain on November 23, 1929, studied in Manila, Rome and Paris where he now lives. His first show in England although represented in many American and French museums as well as private collections – Cocteau, Gian-Carlo Menotti and Rothschild. His painting fluctuates between shimmering abstractions built around a central core and images that seem to emerge from demolition sites like ghosts. They all have a dreamy, translucent depth through layer after layer of cohering pastel-tinted colour that takes on the look of filmy shifting cloud puffs. They are calm, lucid and personal water colours that have a convincing structure and a shrouded narrative illusion"
- Conroy Maddox. Art Review

"First exhibition of Juvenal Sanso, who was born in Spain in 1929. One understands why his work has been bought by Jean Cocteau, Gian-Carlo Menotti. There is the atmosphere of another order co-existing with the surface appearance of rocks in moonlight, or towers of rushes in the twilight, or collapsing Oriental shanty towns. Perhaps it is only a hint of all that Cocteau found behind the mirror or Menotti in the seance room. As Valery said: it takes no more energy to write fortisi-mo than piano, or universe than garden."
- Oswell Blakenston, London Week

"… quality that far surpasses anything shown on Parisian stages. This is one of the most remarkable stage creations, technically and artistically speaking, that the French theatre has produced in the last 20 years! Sanso's sets and costumes are ingenious and are full of ESPIRIT."
- Claude Rostand, Le Figaro

"Juvenal Sanso - Born in Spain, raised in the Philippines, a resident of Paris. Sanso is still on the move, has made several trips around the world. His lovely landscapes of Brittany, Manila and Manhattan omit the human presence, make nature the actor in richly detailed but desolate dramas."
- Times Magazine, New York City

"According to its custom, the Cleveland Museum's Print Club publishes the ‘Print of the Year/, ‘Lews’ (Glimmering) etching and aquatint by Juvenal Sanso. In celebration of the event the museum hangs drawings, paintings and prints by this artist, one of the largest shows in a long time. He achieved his first success with his drawings of the shanty-towns of bombed out Manila, crazy quilt patterns of the cat-stitched rubbish from which they were built. Years later, in a series of ‘Manhattan Impressions’ he plays the same theme with gayer instruments from the checkered and plaid patterns of skyscrapers. From the summers he spends in Britanny come beach scenes of battered boats and the mossy, furry patterns of the life that edges the sea and sand. His intricacies are those of hand-wrought lace, so delicate it seems to float but carrying the realization of the patience that produced them to add to their appeal."
- The Sun, Cleveland, Ohio

"The artist has spent many years in the Philippines and the glowing colors and bamboo-like lines reflect an eastern influence. His brooding world is divided in mood between dark and light; the paintings are often landscapes of inanimate objects that suddenly have come active, shifting black linear shapes against intensely glowing orange and red backgrounds … architectural shapes are depicted degenerating like bamboo shapes in the jungle… a brooding reflective painting. . . a white moon in a pale sky, mysteriously illuminating silent landscape of skeletons of rock and moss… the coast of Britanny in which the artist is preoccupied with skeletons of old fishing boats being destroyed by the sea. Also being shown are many superior etchings. Sanso's strong linear style and reflective approach combined with his dramatic use of color make this show memorable."
- Art in America, New York City

"Sanso is a contemplative poet; his landscapes that seem fantastic are authentic, seen in the Far-East. . . his flowers, masses of rocks, the fishing traps that look like stylized cathedrals, his tropical plants are all remembered so clearly that he can recreate them in his works… in this silent world no human figure seems to penetrate…”
- Le Figaro, Paris