Luis Graner

LUIS GRANER ARRUFÍ (Barcelona, 1863 - 1929).
"Playing the guitar".
Oil on canvas.
Signed in the lower right corner.
Measurements: 55,5 x 70 cm; 71 x 86 cm (frame).

The paintings of Graner, of a realistic style in the form, take for subject the daily life of the humble people. In his interior scenes he shows a profound influence of Latour, learned in his Parisian years, which leads him to focus on the expressiveness of artificial light.

Luis Graner trained at the La Lonja School in Barcelona, where he was a disciple of Benito Mercadé and Antonio Caba, and in 1886 he moved to Paris thanks to a scholarship from the Diputación de Barcelona. Throughout his career as an artist he received numerous awards. In 1904 he created the Sala Mercè, designed by Gaudí, where he organized his "musical visions", shows that combined poetry with music, scenography with cinema. At the same time, he organized the first projections of spoken cinema, using the technique of placing actors behind the screen to lend their voices. Finally, ruined, he moved to America, where he devoted himself once again to painting. He made several trips to the United States and Latin America, spending most of his time between New York, where he made his first individual exhibition in 1910, and California. Specializing in genre painting, he also cultivated landscape and portraiture. His work is present in the Prado Museum, the MACBA in Barcelona, the National Art Museum of Catalonia, the Hispanic Society of New York and the Balaguer Museum in Vilanova i la Geltrú, among others, as well as in important private collections.