MANOLO HUGUÉ (Barcelona, 1872 - Caldas de Montbui, Barcelona, 1945).
"Male figure".
Ink on paper.
Signed in the lower right corner.
Size: 19 x 15 cm; 25 x 21 cm (frame).
Manuel Martínez Hugué, Manolo Hugué, trained at the Escuela de la Lonja in Barcelona. In 1900 he moved to Paris, where he lived for ten years. There he worked on the design of jewellery and small sculptures, influenced by the work of his friend, the sculptor and goldsmith Paco Durrio. Between 1910 and 1917, devoted entirely to sculpture, he worked in Ceret, where he brought together a heterogeneous group of artists including Juan Gris, Joaquín Sunyer and, once again, Picasso. During these years he held exhibitions in Barcelona, Paris and New York. In 1932 he was appointed a member of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Jorge in Barcelona. In Hugué's work, what is essential is the relationship with nature, taking into account the human figure as an integrated element in it. In his artistic production, Mediterranean tradition, Greek classicism and archaism, and the art of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia coexist with the European avant-garde, which he assimilated and knew at first hand, specifically Matisse's Fauvism and Cubism. Works by Hugué are kept in the MACBA, the Georges Pompidou Centre in Paris, the Museo Nacional de Arte de Cataluña and the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, among many others.