Arcadi Mas

ARCADI MAS I FONDEVILA (Barcelona, 1852 - Sitges, Barcelona, 1934).
"Procession".
Watercolor on paper.
Signed in the lower right corner.
It has a label of the Sala Parés on the back.
Measurements: 58 x 80 cm; 85 x 108 cm (frame).

Arcadi Mas took up the theme of the Good Friday procession in Sitges on different occasions, both in oil and watercolor, as in this case. The group of friars and altar boys carrying banners and candles are followed by a motley crowd. The sea, with a clean blue that dialogues with the reds and whites of the religious, confers an ideal frame.

Painter and draftsman, founder of the luminist school of Sitges, Arcadi Mas i Fondevila was trained at the La Lonja School in Barcelona, where his teachers were Antonio Caba and Claudio Lorenzale. At the age of twenty he took part in his first collective exhibition, organized in the hall of the Artistic Association of Barcelona. In 1873 he travels to Madrid, visits the Prado Museum and exhibits in the Platería Martínez room a painting that would later be bought by King Alfonso XII. Two years later he won the first Fortuny scholarship from the City Council of Barcelona, which allowed him to further his studies by traveling to Italy as a pensioner between 1876 and 1886. During these years, Arcadi Mas i Fondevila visited Venice, Rome, Naples and Capri, while participating in several group exhibitions at the Sala Parés in Barcelona. Ascribed to the Neapolitan naturalist school of Domenico Morelli, in 1885 he also participated in the exhibition of the Center of Watercolorists of Barcelona. On his return to Catalonia, his friend Joan Roig Soler encouraged him to visit Sitges, and from this meeting and acquaintance was born the luminist school of Sitges, a pictorial current that brought together other artists such as Joaquim de Miró, Antoni Almirall and Joan Batlle. In 1887 he participated in the National Exhibition of Fine Arts in Madrid, and won a medal for his work "Corpus Christi Procession in Sitges". He also participated in the Universal Exposition of Barcelona the following year, being awarded the first medal. In 1895 he travels again to Madrid, this time accompanied by Santiago Rusiñol and Zuloaga, and later he goes to Granada with Rusiñol, Miguel Utrillo and Macari Oller, with the intention of illustrating some articles of the first one for "La Vanguardia". Mas i Fondevila won two more medals at the Fine Arts Exhibitions in Barcelona in 1894 and 1896, and in 1899 he joined the Círculo Artístico de Sant Lluc. In 1900 he inaugurated the Rovira Salon in Barcelona with his first individual exhibition, a show that consecrated him as a master of pastel. An example of the relevance of this painter can be found in the fact that Picasso had copied one of his nudes from 1895. In 1928 he was commissioned to paint one of the murals of the Sala de Sant Jordi in the Palace of the Generalitat in Barcelona, and in 1932 he exhibited again individually, this time in the Pinacoteca room. On the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of his death, the Sitgetan Studies Group dedicated an anthological exhibition to him at the Maricel Museum (1985). In his painting, Mas i Fondevila combined Catalan localism with his Neapolitan memories. He also worked on portraits, with outstanding works such as those of Antonio Caba and Pitarra. He is represented in the National Art Museum of Catalonia, the Maricel, the Cau Ferrat and the Sitges Town Hall, among others.