Hermenegildo Anglada Camarasa

HERMENEGILDO ANGLADA CAMARASA (Barcelona, 1871 - Pollença, Mallorca, 1959).
"Mountains of Boquer, Mallorca".
Oil on canvas.
Work reproduced in "Anglada-Camarasa" by Francesc Fontbona and Francesc Miralles, Ediciones Polígrafa. pg 284 (num. Da 71).
Exhibitions: El Pez Gallery, San Sebastian 1976; Sala Parés, Barcelona, 1976.
Measurements: 38 x 51 cm; 57 x 70 cm (frame).
Anglada Camarasa is one of the main names of modern Catalan art, and undoubtedly the one who has had more international transcendence of Spanish post-impressionism. He was the youngest painter of the second modernist generation, and is considered an outstanding representative of post-impressionism. He began his training with Tomás Moragas, and later continued at the School of La Lonja in Barcelona as a disciple of Modesto Urgell, whom he always proclaimed as his great master, even though his mature style was very different from Urgell's. During this period of training his work was very different from that of Urgell. In this formative period, Anglada Camarasa's work shows a clear interest in landscape and the human figure. After a brief contact with the group of "Els Quatre Gats", in 1894 he moved to Paris, where his style was influenced by Degas, Toulouse Lautrec, Fauvism and Orientalism. In the French capital he continued his training in the academies of Julian and Colarossi, where he received classes from Laurens, Constant and Girardot. France was for Anglada Camarasa the platform for his international launching. His solo exhibition at the Sala Parés in Barcelona in May 1900, and his time at "Els Quatre Gats", gave Catalan modernism a direct knowledge of what was the most modern painting in Paris, a circumstance that was decisive in the young Picasso's turn towards plastic modernity. Still in Paris, Anglada Camarasa joined the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts in 1904, of which he would be a very active member, participating assiduously in its exhibitions. During this period his international activity multiplied and he participated in the Venice Biennials of 1903, 1905 and 1907, receiving the Gold Medal in the latter year, a prize he also won in the Buenos Aires Biennial of 1910. He had an individual exhibition at the 1929 Barcelona International Biennial. He was named Honorary Academician of the Royal Academy of San Fernando in 1954, and three years later he was awarded the art prize of the March Foundation. Anglada Camarasa was the protagonist of some of the most important moments in the history of art in the first half of the 20th century, and his success from 1900 onwards made his name an international reference. His work was exhibited all over Europe, from Rome to Prague and from Paris to Moscow, and attracted important collectors in the main European capitals, as well as in the United States.