Spanish sculptor Miquel Navarro dies at 81

Miquel Navarro, a Valencian sculptor, painter and engraver, has died at the age of 81. He died on Sunday, 1 November, at his home in Mislata, the town on the edge of Valencia where he was born, after a long illness.

The Mislata City Council announced his death in a statement. The council declared three days of official mourning, from 1 to 3 November, for the artist it described as a universal figure who turned his roots into a legacy for the world.

Navarro was born on 29 September 1945 in Mislata. He enrolled in fine arts at the Escuela Superior de Bellas Artes de San Carlos in Valencia, the city's main art school, but he left in 1968 without finishing the course. In 1973 he made his first "City" sculpture, the start of a body of work built around urban forms and the idea of the city. Spanish newspaper El País described him as one of the leading figures of the group known as Nueva Escultura Española, or New Spanish Sculpture, a generation of Spanish sculptors who worked in the decades after the Franco era.

His work reached far beyond Spain. The Guggenheim Museum in New York displayed his Wall City (1995-2000) in 2004, after the Guggenheim Bilbao in Spain acquired the piece. ARTNews reported his death.

Navarro also gave back to his home region. According to a 2012 record from the Valencian Institute of Modern Art, known as IVAM, he donated 525 works to the museum. IVAM's programme for 2016 included an exhibition of his work, which shows how closely the institute followed his career over many years.

Beyond sculpture, Navarro worked as a painter and an engraver, making prints and drawings alongside his larger pieces. He lived and worked in Mislata for most of his life, and the town's council chose to mark his death with a formal period of mourning rather than a single day of remembrance.

Mislata's council called the artist's life a legacy that still belongs to the town. For the people who knew him there, the next few days will mostly be about saying goodbye.