Alexandre de Riquer

ALEXANDRE DE RIQUER INGLADA (Calaf, Barcelona, 1856 - Palma de Mallorca, 1920).
Original project for the pages of the book "Aplech de Sonets. Un poema d'amor", 1906.
Ink drawing on paper.
Measurements: 47,5 x 32,5 cm; 54 x 46 cm (frame).

Ink drawing on paper published on most of the pages of the book. The heading "UN POEMA D'AMOR. A DE RIQUER" and the other "APLECH DE SONETS. A. DE RIQUER" was modified for its reproduction depending on which poems had to go inside if one work or the other. Ornamental floral motifs create this composition that surrounds on all the pages of the illustrated book the words also written by Alexandre de Riquer.

Drawer, painter and poet, de Riquer began his studies in Manresa and Languedoc, France. Back in Barcelona, he completed his training with Tomás Padró and Antoni Caba, at La Lonja. He then travels to Paris and London, being of special importance his contact in England with Japonism, Pre-Raphaelism and the Arts & Crafts movement. Influenced by figures such as William Morris, he embodied the Pre-Raphaelite ideal: artist, craftsman and poet united in the same man. He founded a furniture workshop, made designs for decorative arts and collaborated as a draftsman and poet with the most prominent publications of Catalan modernism. He also introduced the art of ex-libris in Catalonia, a discipline in which he achieved worldwide fame. He participated in numerous exhibitions and expositions, obtaining first medals in the Universal of Barcelona (1888), the National of Madrid (1906) and the Universal of Chicago (1893). Riquer is represented in the Prado Museum, the National Art Museum of Catalonia, the Ateneo of Barcelona, the Cau Ferrat and the Diocesan Museum of Barcelona, among many others.