Gaspar Homar

GASPAR HOMAR MEZQUIDA (Bunyola, Mallorca, 1870 - Barcelona, 1953).
Chapel or niche, ca. 1900.
Various fruit woods and gilded brass.
Wood and glass shelves.
In good state of preservation.
Measurements: 120 x 55 x 15 cm .

Modernist chapel designed by the famous cabinetmaker and decorator Gaspar Homar. Homar combines fine fruit marquetry with embossed applications in gilded brass, in which he develops different floral models: together with the cresting forged with garlands, festoons and sinuous bouquets, more synthetic marquetry representations of the vegetal world appear represented on the soffit. This shows the diversity of sources from which Homar drew: the modernist coup de fouet, but also Gothic reminiscences that the author reinvents. The decorative proliferation is subsumed to a harmonic and symmetrical order. The niches or chapels were conceived to hang on the wall and place the image of a saint on a shelf.

A modernist cabinetmaker and decorator, Gaspar Homar began his training at the Escuela de La Lonja, in Barcelona, to later broaden his knowledge in the workshop of the cabinetmaker Francesc Vidal, who had also been his father's teacher. In 1893, only ten years later, both opened their own establishment in Barcelona, under the name of P. Homar e Hijo. Two years later his father died, leaving Gaspar in charge of the workshop. Throughout his fruitful career he participated in exhibitions in London, Madrid, Barcelona, Zaragoza and Paris, and was a member of the jury of the 1908 Venice International. Homar began his style within the neo-Gothic trend but soon specialized in modernism, a style in which he produced his best works until 1918, later devoting himself to the production of conventional furniture. During these years he collaborated with Sebastià Junyent, Joan Carreres and Josep Pey Farriol in the design of furniture and complete rooms, with an exquisite richness of design, figurative marquetry in soffits and furniture which are his hallmark, etc. He incorporated exotic woods such as sycamore, banana, mahogany and rosewood. His production of ornamental furniture (chests, umbrella stands, etc.) as well as beds, closets and chairs, was very well known. His best known works are the integral decoration of the Lleó-Morera (1904), Navàs and Burés houses, as well as several buildings by Gaudí and Doménech i Montaner. He also won, among other awards, the Grand Prize for Furniture and Decoration at the London Exhibition of 1907, the Grand Prize, Gold Medal and Gold Medal at the London Exhibition of 1907.