Arcadi Mas i Fondevila

ARCADI MAS I FONDEVILA (Barcelona, 1852 - Sitges, Barcelona, 1934).
"Secret marriage".
Charcoal, chalk, wax and gouache on paper.
Published in the magazine La Ilustración Artística, weekly newspaper of literature, arts and sciences, n. 1615, p. 807.
Signed in the lower right corner.
Measurements: 45 x 63 cm; 62 x 80 cm (frame).

In this work, Arcadi Mas has been able to combine a dark monochromatic palette with a meticulous sociological observation, extracting from it a juicy and lively scene of interior finished in murder.

Painter and draftsman, founder of the luminist school of Sitges, Arcadi Mas i Fondevila was trained at the Escuela de La Lonja in Barcelona, where his teachers were Antonio Caba and Claudio Lorenzale. In 1873 he traveled to Madrid, visited the Prado Museum and exhibited in the Platería Martínez room a painting that would later be bought by King Alfonso XII. Two years later he won the first Fortuny scholarship from the City Council of Barcelona, which allowed him to further his studies by traveling to Italy as a pensioner between 1876 and 1886. During these years, Arcadi Mas i Fondevila visited Venice, Rome, Naples and Capri, while participating in several group exhibitions at the Sala Parés in Barcelona. Ascribed to the Neapolitan naturalist school of Domenico Morelli, in 1885 he also participated in the exhibition of the Center of Watercolorists of Barcelona. On his return to Catalonia, his friend Joan Roig Soler encouraged him to visit Sitges, and from this meeting and acquaintance was born the luminist school of Sitges, a pictorial current that brought together other artists such as Joaquim de Miró, Antoni Almirall and Joan Batlle. In 1887 he participated in the National Exhibition of Fine Arts in Madrid, being awarded a medal. He also participated in the Universal Exhibition of Barcelona the following year, obtaining a first medal. Mas i Fondevila won two more medals at the Fine Arts Exhibitions of Barcelona in 1894 and 1896, and in 1899 he became a member of the Círculo Artístico de Sant Lluc. In 1900 he inaugurated the Rovira Salon in Barcelona with his first individual exhibition, a show that consecrated him as a master of pastel. During this period, Mas i Fondevila also collaborated as a draftsman in "La Ilustració Catalana". In 1928 he was commissioned to paint one of the murals of the Sala de Sant Jordi in the Palace of the Generalitat in Barcelona, and in 1932 he exhibited again individually, this time in the Pinacoteca room. On the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of his death, the Sitgetan Studies Group dedicated an anthological exhibition to him at the Maricel Museum (1985). He is represented at the National Art Museum of Catalonia, the Maricel, the Cau Ferrat and the Sitges Town Hall, as well as in other museums and private collections.