Jaume Sans

JAUME SANS (Sitges, Barcelona, 1914-1987).
Untitled, 1933.
Mixed media on paper.
Signed and dated in the lower right corner.
Measurements: 31 x 19,5 cm; 43,5 x 31,5 cm (frame).

Jaume Sans spent most of his childhood in Cuba. Years later, already in Barcelona, he came in contact with the magazine L Amic de les Arts, one of the periodicals that contributed to revolutionize the artistic panorama of the 20's, published in Sitges between 1926 and 1929. Artists such as Salvador Dalí, the critic Sebastià Gasch and the writers J.V. Foix and Lluís Montanyá gathered around the magazine. During the first decades of the 20th century, avant-garde centers in Spain were almost non-existent, with the rare exception of Barcelona. The city was a welcoming center for artists exiled from World War I and its innovative tradition allowed the emergence of more daring exhibition programs. Exhibitions such as that of the Galeries Dalmau in 1912, which was the second cubist art exhibition held outside Paris, or the Universal Exposition of 1929, which included the revolutionary German pavilion of Mies van der Rohe, placed the city on the European artistic map. During 1932 and 1933 Jaume Sans attended the School of Arts and Crafts, against the opposition of his family, where he met Angel Ferrant, who would have a profound influence on his work. Sans was a member of Amics de l'Art Nou (ADLAN), a group of artists that promoted the diffusion of new arts and organized exhibitions such as Alexander Calder's Circus in Miniature or Joan Miró's Objects. In 1935 he showed his sculptural work together with Ramon Marinel-lo and Eudald Serra in the exhibition Tres Esculptors organized by ADLAN at the Galeries d'Art Catalònia in Barcelona. This surrealist exhibition was key in the evolution of contemporary Catalan sculpture.