Pere Pruna

PERE PRUNA OCERANS (Barcelona, 1904 - 1977).
"Female portrait", 1924.
Oil on canvas.
Signed and dated in the lower right corner.
Measurements: 92 x 73,5 cm; 114 x 95 cm (frame).

We are before a singular painting for several reasons: on the one hand, it is a unique work within the best known production of Pere Pruna, on the other hand, it belongs to a stage, the Parisian, in which Pruna was introduced in the most avant-garde environment of the French capital by the hand of his admired Pablo Picasso. In 1920 Pruna arrived in Paris and there he met Picasso thanks to a letter of recommendation from Sebastián Sunyer; under the protection of the Malaga master, the young painter developed the most stimulating stage of his career. The influence of the Malaga-born painter is notable in this portrait, in which the intimate legacy of his blue period can be appreciated, but also assimilating Picasso's contemporaneous concern for what critics would baptize as "neoclassical period", a classicism with Mediterranean roots. Certainly, the formal purification to which the Andalusian master had arrived after leaving behind his cubist research, is transmitted to his disciple, Pruna, in an undeniable way, as we see in the subtle stroke that with a minimal drawing expresses the withdrawal of the figure in itself. The face seems to be carved in wood, with hard features that nevertheless communicate so much in their silence. In that fruitful Parisian period, which was to be a turning point in Pruna's career, the artist made harlequins directly inspired by those of Picasso. Here the inspiration is less direct and instead more profound, almost as if the mentor's brush had also left its mark on a portrait imbued with mystery.

A mainly self-taught artist, Pere Pruna completed his training at the School of Fine Arts in Barcelona. After beginning to exhibit in Barcelona when he was still very young, he traveled to Paris in 1920, where he was helped and guided by Picasso. In the French capital he held a successful solo exhibition at the Galerie Percier, and came into contact with intellectuals such as Cocteau, Drieu la Rochelle, Max Jacob and others, with whom he founded the magazine "Philosophie" in 1924. Serge Diaghilev, who visited one of his exhibitions, also proposed him to create the sets and costumes for the ballet "Les matelots" in 1925. Since then he also worked on other musical works, such as "La vie de Polichinele" (1934) and "Oriane" (1938), among others. In 1928 he obtained the second absolute prize in the exhibition of the Carnegie Institute of Pittsburg and later, on his return to Barcelona, he obtained other awards such as the competition "Montserrat seen by the Catalan artists" (1931) or the Nonell Prize (1936). The latter was surrounded by controversy, because Pruna obtained it for his oil painting "El vi de Chios", for which he used as a model a photograph published in a Parisian pornographic magazine. In view of the commotion caused, Pruna renounced the prize, but the jury ratified its decision. Following the outbreak of the Civil War, Pruna settled in Paris and continued his international exhibition activity, with an exhibition organized in London in 1937. At the same time he worked for Ridruejo's propaganda services, with works such as the poster commemorating the promulgation of the Labor Force, and Eugenio d'Ors, National Head of Fine Arts, introduced him to the Spanish representation at the Venice Biennale in 1938. After the war he combined easel painting exhibitions with mural painting, a genre in which his work in the Monastery of Montserrat was especially celebrated. In 1965 he won the City of Barcelona award, and three years later he was named academician of the Far de Sant Cristòfor. His style, centered on a graceful and stylized female figure, is based on the clear delicacy of the pink and "neoclassical" Picasso, and reveals a certain parallelism with the Italian Novencento, fully framed in the classicist current that appeared in Western art after the first wave of avant-garde, and of which his friend Cocteau was the driving force. Pruna focused on portraiture and especially on the female figure, capturing images marked by great delicacy and sober distinction. His representations are characterized by a stylized and diaphanous line, and are in tune with the return to order after the rupture that cubism meant in France, thus linking directly with the avant-garde. Pere Pruna is currently represented in the Museum of Montserrat, where there is a space with his name, the MACBA in Barcelona and the Maricel Museum in Sitges, among others.