Ramon Casas

RAMON CASAS CARBÓ (Barcelona, 1866 - 1932).
"Modernist Lady", 1900.
Charcoal, pastel and watercolor on paper.
Signed in the lower right corner.
With dry stamp of the magazine Pèl & Ploma.
Framed with museum glass.
A certificate can be issued at the buyer's request and expense.
Measurements: 32 x 20 cm; 60 x 48,5 cm (frame).

This drawing corresponds to one of the copies that Ramón Casas gave annually to the subscribers of the magazine Pèl & Ploma to encourage their annual subscription. The price of Casas's drawing was higher than the subscription price of the magazine and was an incentive for any bourgeois of the time to have a work by the artist and to consume a periodical publication directed by Casas and Miquel Utrillo. On the back of the drawing is the number 257, an internal numbering by Ramón Casas to keep track of how many drawings he had to do for the following year.

This drawing was a sketch for a work by Ramón Casas in which a manola with a fan can be seen ventándose and drinking a glass of liquor on a table while in the background of the composition two picadors can be seen preparing to enter the bullring.

An outstanding painter and draftsman, Casas trained in Barcelona and Paris. He showed his work both in his hometown and in the French capital, in places as prominent as the Sala Parés in Barcelona and the Salon des Champs Elysées in Paris. While his fame as a painter grew, Casas began to work as a graphic designer, adopting the Art Nouveau style that came to define Catalan Modernism. In the following years his successes followed: he presented two works at the Universal Exhibition in Paris in 1900, won a prize in Munich in 1901, several of his works were included in the permanent exhibition of the Círculo del Liceo, had several international exhibitions and, in 1904, won first prize at the General Exhibition in Madrid. He is represented in the Prado Museum, the National Museum of Art of Catalonia, the Reina Sofia National Museum, the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, the Museum of Montserrat, the Cau Ferrat in Sitges, the Camón Aznar Museum in Zaragoza and the Contemporary Art Museums of Barcelona and Seville, among many others.