In the context of a country in ruins, Tomás Seral y Casas undertook the opening of the Libros room in Zaragoza in 1939, a space dedicated to a gallery and a bookstore. In 1957 Pablo Serrano and Antonio Saura met in Madrid , where they participated in the foundation of the El Paso group , which Manuel Viola joined in 1958. Eighteen years separate the two artistic milestones, which set the chronological framework of Aragón and the Arts. 1939-1957 dedicated to reviewing the artistic panorama in Aragon , dealing with the activity experienced by the plastic arts, architecture, photography, cinema and illustration . In the same way, the work that various institutions, groups, creators and intellectuals carry out in the recovery of the Aragonese cultural panorama after the war is reviewed, without forgetting those who carry out their activity from other places in the national and international geography.

These are years in which we witness the progressive reactivation of architectural activity in rural and urban areas, the opening of new rooms and galleries and the recovery of official and private initiative in the form of exhibitions, with the special participation of artists such as creators and agitators of the post-war cultural scene. They were years of complex physical, artistic and cultural reconstruction of Aragon , developed under the dichotomy of the predominant official taste for tradition and the academic and the proposals that, following the legacy of the avant-garde, seek to explore other creative paths.

The visitor will be able to learn about the pioneering abstraction of the Pórtico group with works by Santiago Lagunas, Fermín Aguayo or Eloy G. Laguardia, surrealism through the first paintings by Antonio Saura or the collages by Alfonso Buñuel and Luis García-Abrines, the representations that Francisco de Cidón created in the warlike landscape of Aragon or architectural milestones such as the Dorado cinema and its program of integration of the arts from abstraction.

This exhibition is part of a large project that will be developed in three phases. The final result will be a permanent exhibition that will be presented for a period of 4 years, starting from the opening of the first exhibition, with detailed studies of each of the periods (1939-1957 / 1957-1975 / 1975-end of the century XX). ) with the aim of constituting the permanent exhibition of contemporary art in Aragon.