Interpretation of the Portrait of Juan Antonio Gaya Nuño

Interpretations of the Portrait (Interpretaciones al Retrato) is one of Serrano's most personal series. It is the one he worked on the most throughout his career after starting it in 1955 at the end of his Uruguayan phase. He approached a genre most associated with academics from expressionist angles and did not seek to make the pieces look exactly like their physical counterparts in order to capture the personality of the person portrayed. Aiming to capture the person's metaphysical dimension, Serrano subjected his portraits, including Gaya Nuño, to a highly gestual working process starting from clay through which he left indents with his fingers, deforming the person's features as a way of accentuating the expressionism of the portrait which was later cast in bronze.