Eliseo Meifrén

ELISEO MEIFRÈN ROIG (Barcelona, 1857 - 1940).
"View of Venice", ca. 1889.
Charcoal and chalk drawing on paper.
Signed in the lower right corner.
Measurements: 10.3 x 6.4 cm; 24 x 28.5 cm (frame).

The work in bidding coincides with the visit of Eliseo Meifrén to Italy in 1889. After an exhibition at the Sala Parés in Barcelona some time before, the Catalan painter auctioned the unsold works and with that money he visited part of the Italian territory: Lake Como, Naples and, as we can see in this charcoal, Venice.

A painter of landscapes and seascapes, Eliseo Meifrèn is considered one of the first introducers of the impressionist movement in Catalonia. He began his artistic training at the School of Fine Arts in Barcelona, where he was a disciple of Antonio Caba and Ramón Martí Alsina, with whom he began to paint romantic landscapes of academic style. After finishing his studies, in 1878, he moved to Paris in order to broaden his artistic knowledge, and there he got to know first hand the "plen air" painting, which would influence him powerfully in his Parisian landscapes of those years. Likewise, in Paris he coincided with the public beginning of impressionism. A year later he made a trip to Italy, during which he visited Naples, Florence, Venice and Rome; there he made contact with the circle of Catalan artists formed by Ramón Tusquets, Arcadio Mas i Fondevila, Enrique Serra, Antonio Fabrés and Joan Llimona, among others. That same year, 1879, he participated in the Regional Exhibition of Valencia, and won a gold medal. Once back in Barcelona, in 1880 he made his individual debut in the Sala Parés in Barcelona, where he would continue to exhibit regularly from then on. During these years he was part of the modernist group, and frequented Els Quatre Gats. In 1883 he returned to Paris, where he made numerous drawings and watercolors with views of the city and its cafés, which earned him a warm welcome from French critics and the French public. At the end of the eighties he returned to Barcelona and continued to show his work at the Sala Parés, as well as at the Centro de Acuarelistas. Also, in 1888 he was a member of the jury of the Universal Exhibition held in Barcelona. In 1890 he returned for the third time to the French capital, where he participated in the Salon des Beaux-Arts and in the Salon des Indépendants of 1892, together with Ramon Casas and Santiago Rusiñol, artists with whom he had formed the Sitges pictorial group a year earlier. In the following years Meifrèn would send his works to numerous official exhibitions and competitions, among them the National Exhibitions of Madrid and Barcelona, and was awarded the third medal at the Paris Universal of 1889 and 1899, silver medal at the Brussels Universal of 1910, grand prize at the Buenos Aires Universal of the same year, medal of honor at the San Francisco International of 1915 and grand prize at the San Diego International of the following year. He also won the Nonell Prize of Barcelona in 1935. In 1952, the Barcelona City Council dedicated a retrospective exhibition to him, held at the Palacio de la Virreina. His initial landscapes, characterized by an academic and romantic concept, would later evolve towards an impressionist language; abandoning the Roman preciosism, his would be a technique of loose brushstrokes and clear palette, in which the luminous conception approaches symbolist budgets, within the orbit of Modesto Urgell. He is currently represented in the Prado Museum, the National Art Museum of Catalonia, the MACBA in Barcelona and the Thyssen-Bornemisza, among many others.