JOAQUIM MIR TRINXET (Barcelona, 1873 - 1940).
"Huerto de Vilanova".
Oil on canvas.
Signed in the lower right corner.
Size: 38 x 46 cm; 57 x 65 cm (frame).
Joaquim Mir studied at the San Jordi School of Fine Arts in Barcelona and in the workshop of the painter Luis Graner. His style was also influenced by the School of Olot, his father's home town. In 1893, together with other colleagues (Nonell, Canals, Pichot, Vallmitjana and Gual), he founded the "Colla del Safrà" (Safrà Group) to explore together the pictorial initiatives of the end of the century. The name came from the saffron and ochre tones they used in their paintings, with which they sought to capture the Mediterranean luminosity and reject the coldness of the greys and blues of the French Impressionists. Nevertheless, they imitated the Impressionists in their taste for painting in the open air, capturing the atmospheres and types they saw. In 1896 they even took part as a group in the 3rd Exhibition of Fine Arts and Artistic Industries, to which Mir submitted two works that give us a clear idea of the group's ideals: "The Rector's Vegetable Garden" and "The Orange Seller". From 1897 he also frequented the artistic environment of "Els Quatre Gats", where all the artists who were familiar with the European avant-garde met, which helped him to mature in the compositional study of landscapes with figures in different planes of depth. He took part in the Fine Arts Exhibitions in Barcelona in 1894, 1896 and 1898. Winner of a second medal at the Madrid Exhibition of 1899, that same year he moved to the capital with the aim of applying for a scholarship in Rome. In 1901 he exhibited the fruit of this first Mallorcan period at the Sala Parés in Barcelona, where he again won a second medal at the National Exhibition. After a period of illness that forced him to move to Reus, in 1907 he won the first medal at the International Exhibition of Fine Arts in Barcelona. From then on, settled in Camp de Tarragona, he did not move away from the landscape genre, but now it was the surrounding villages that were the protagonists of his painting. He painted the houses, the churches, the orchards, the people, the flowering almond trees, the farmyards... Unimportant subjects that were more and more in line with the reality of nature, as they only wanted to reflect his love for his land and his constant search for changes in the light. His style was no longer as expressive as in Mallorca, although his bold use of colour and stain remained. Already established as a leading figure on the Catalan scene, he gained definitive national recognition in 1917, when he was awarded the National Prize for Fine Arts. Four years later he married and settled permanently in Vilanova i la Geltrú. His successes followed one after the other, and in 1929 he won the first medal at the International Exhibition in Barcelona. The following year he won the medal of honour at the National Exhibition in Madrid, a prize he had been after since 1922. Although he was mainly a native painter, he held solo and group exhibitions in Washington, Paris, Pittsburgh, New York, Philadelphia, Amsterdam, Buenos Aires and Venice. Mir is today considered the foremost representative of Spanish Post-Impressionist landscape painting. His work can be found in the Museo Nacional de Arte de Cataluña, the Museo del Prado, the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza and the Museo Reina Sofía in Madrid, among many others.