Lluís Marsans

LLUÍS MARSANS JULIÀ (Barcelona, 1930-2015).
"In search of lost time".
Illustration for Marcel Proust's novel.
Pencil and charcoal on laid paper.
Signed.
Measurements: 36 x 27 cm; 61 x 51 cm (frame).
Watercolorist and painter, Luis Marsans is mainly known for his series centered on the world of Marcel Proust, entitled "A la recerca del temps perdut", and since 1980 he regularly shows his work at the Claude Bernard gallery in Paris. In fact, he spent part of his childhood in that city because of the war, and did not return to Barcelona with his family until 1940. In 1947 he traveled to Mexico and the United States, and in New York he met Salvador Dalí, through his mutual friend Ismael Smith. He then discovered contemporary art and decided to devote himself to painting, and on his return to Barcelona in 1948 he began his training in the studio of Ramón Rogent. He also came into contact with Dau al Set through Joan Ponç. During this period Marsans becomes interested in the Bauhaus, and travels to France to meet its founder, Walter Gropius. On this trip he visits an exhibition of Cézanne, which will radically change his work. In 1950 he left Rogent's workshop and continued his technical and aesthetic research on his own. In this decade he met Duchamp in Cadaqués, and this encounter determined his identification with a new plastic language. Thus, at the beginning of 1960 he began to integrate figuration and abstraction in his work. After devoting several years to his series on Proust, Marsans finally decides to present his work to the public, making his individual debut at the Trece gallery in Barcelona in 1972. The following year his language takes another turn and Marsans returns to figuration, without renouncing the conceptual content of his work. In 1982 he had a solo exhibition at the Balzac Museum in Paris, and since then he has had important exhibitions both in Spain and abroad: Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington D.C. (1985), Centro de Exposiciones y Congresos in Zaragoza (1989), Palau de la Virreina in Barcelona (1995), Leandro Navarro Gallery in Madrid (1997) and Artur Ramon Gallery in Barcelona (1997).