Alexandre de Riquer

ALEXANDRE DE RIQUER INGLADA (Calaf, Barcelona, 1856 - Palma de Mallorca, 1920).
"Project for the Kruger Liqueur poster", 1901.
Pencil and ink drawing on paper.
Signed on the lower right with the anagram AR "Alexandre de Riquer".
It has stains and some tears.
Measurements: 32,2 x 18 cm; 53 x 39 cm (frame).

This is the original drawing made by Alexandre de Riquer for one of the most difficult to find posters by the artist. In fact, only one preserved copy is known, which is in the Marc Martí collection and was presented in 2006 on the occasion of an exhibition of the artist. The project remained unpublished until today.

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.