Manolo Hugué

MANOLO HUGUÉ (Barcelona, 1872 - Caldas de Montbui, Barcelona, 1945).
"Bullring".
Watercolor on paper.
Measurements: 17 x 23 cm; 45 x 50 cm (frame).

What we call immobility is nothing more than a limiting case of slowness in movement, an ideal limit that nature never achieves. This was written by the French philosopher Henri Bergson, and this same principle is materialized by these bullfighters of Manolo Hugué, whose postures translate the dense tension of the instant in the ring.

Manuel Martínez Hugué, Manolo Hugué, was trained at the Escuela de la Lonja in Barcelona. A regular participant in the gatherings of "Els Quatre Gats", he became friends with Picasso, Rusiñol, Mir and Nonell. In 1900 he moved to Paris, where he lived for ten years. There he resumed his relationship with Picasso, and became friends with other avant-garde theorists such as Apollinaire, Modigliani, Braque and Derain. In the French capital he worked on the design of jewelry and small sculptures, influenced by the work of his friend, the sculptor and goldsmith Paco Durrio. In 1892 he worked with Torcuato Tasso on decorative works for the celebrations of the centenary of the Discovery of America. Between 1910 and 1917, completely dedicated to sculpture, he worked in Ceret, where he gathered a heterogeneous group of artists among whom Juan Gris, Joaquín Sunyer and, again, Picasso stood out. During these years he held exhibitions in Barcelona, Paris and New York. In 1932 he was appointed 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. This is a characteristic of Noucentista classicism, but in Hugué's hands it goes beyond its limited origins. He usually represented peasants, although he also depicted bullfighters and dancers -as can be seen on this occasion-, always portrayed with a level of detail and an appreciation of the textures that reveal his former training as a goldsmith. In his artistic production coexist the Mediterranean tradition, Greek classicism and archaism, and the art of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, with the European avant-garde that he assimilated and knew firsthand, specifically Matisse's Fauvism and Cubism. Works by Hugué are kept in the MACBA, the Georges Pompidou Center in Paris, the National Art Museum of Catalonia and the Reina Sofia National Museum and Art Center, among many others.