Lluís Masriera

LLUIS MASRIERA ROSÉS (Barcelona, 1872 - 1958).
"The dressmaker".
Oil on canvas.
Signed and dated in the lower right corner.
Presents stains on the back. Frame with faults in the polychrome.
Measurements: 67 x 43 cm; 80 x 56 cm (frame).

An elegant dressmaker observes a cloth that she holds with both hands imagining the costume that she can make with it. The floor is strewn with white fabrics, swirling everywhere. The old wooden trunk is also overflowing with clothes, and the velvet upholstered armchair almost disappears under the colorful fabrics. With a palette reduced to pastels and cream tones, the scene envelops us with soft fragrances of silk and cotton.

A member of the third generation of an illustrious saga of goldsmiths and silversmiths still active today, Lluís Masriera was the son of José Masriera Manovens (1841-1912), goldsmith and landscape painter. Although he took an early interest in painting, his training was initially oriented towards the family trade, and he was sent to study in Geneva at the age of seventeen. But his prolific and exquisite production of jewelry is only one of the aspects of the activity of this multifaceted and restless character. He was also a prestigious painter and playwright, as well as director of the Academy of Sciences of Barcelona and an omnipresent figure in the most important cultural initiatives of his time. His career as an easel painter began around 1896, when he began to promote his work in official competitions in Barcelona, Madrid, Paris, Buenos Aires and San Francisco, among other cities, winning several awards. He participated in the Fine Arts Exhibitions in Barcelona since 1896, as well as in the French Artists' Salon. Individually, he showed his work in Spain, France, England and Japan. His style denotes the family influence of the Masriera family, combined with the decorative effects of the art of enamel, and is part of the most precious variant of pictorial modernism. Works of his such as "The Japanese Parasol" (1920, MACBA), which won him the Grand Prix at the Paris Exhibition of Decorative Arts, reached a remarkable diffusion even outside our borders, thanks to his fanciful and symbolic compositions, with an air of reverie, which were so popular with the clientele of the first two decades of the twentieth century. In some of his works, thematic aspects and stylistic phases, we can observe a certain influence of Catalan painters such as Lluís Graner and Laureano Barrau, as well as the French naturalist Puvis de Chavannes. As a playwright, Masriera published or premiered nearly fifty plays, and founded and directed his own theater company, as well as the magazine "Estilo". Lluís Masriera is currently represented in the Museum of Contemporary Art of Barcelona, as well as in various private collections.