Tarrassó

CASIMIRO MARTÍNEZ TARRASSÓ (Barcelona, 1898 - 1980).
"Expressionist painting", 1961.
Oil on canvas.
Signed on the lower left, titled and dated on the back.
Presents dirt, damage and xylophages in the wooden frame.
Measurements: 150 x 169 cm; 153 x 173 cm (frame).

We are before a singular canvas not only for the magnificent contagion of hedonistic sensations that Tarrassó awakens in us with his vibrant palette, but also for the peculiarity of having portrayed himself in the lower left part. Tarrassó has silhouetted himself before his easel, painting the colorful landscape with houses. His figure, subtle and outlined in black, does not impose itself on the environment, but neither does it blend in with it. We have the feeling that he remains on another plane of reality, like a spectral presence, like the hidden genius or the demiurge who creates with his imagination this overflowing nature: waterways in lapis lazuli tones, whitewashed houses of intense yellow, an olive green for the foliage. Tarrassó displays his usual skill to express the "joie de vivre" through a unique chromatic and formal symphony. He flirts with abstraction, revolutionizing the forms but without diluting them completely, so that we can immerse ourselves in those splendorous fields that grow around a mountain village. He explores, using a quick and intuitive stroke, the concomitances between the colors of fauve heritage, textures and emotions.

Known simply as Tarrassó, he trained at the La Lonja School in Barcelona. He completed his studies in Paris, where he had first-hand knowledge of the Fauvist works that were shaking the Parisian artistic scene at the time. He was above all a brilliant landscape painter, with a style characterized by its violent and vivid colors, very luminous. He followed in the footsteps of the great Catalan landscape painters, especially Joaquín Mir, although with a clearly differentiated personality due in part to the impact that Fauvism had on his artistic thinking. He cultivated the still life and the Catalan and Majorcan landscapes. He held his first exhibition in 1928, at the Layetanas Galleries in Barcelona. Since then his exhibitions in Barcelona, Madrid, Palma de Mallorca and Bilbao followed one after the other. In 1935 he visited Mallorca for the first time, and from 1940 he had a studio there, specifically in Palma, where he lived for long periods and developed most of his artistic production. After the Civil War, during the forties, Tarrassó took part in several National Exhibitions of Fine Arts, in their editions of 1942, 1943 and 1950, and held many personal exhibitions in Barcelona, in galleries such as Augusta, Layetanas, Ars, etc., among them the one he held of Pyrenean landscapes in 1948, and the one of large canvases of Mallorcan landscapes that he presented in 1949. Although the landscape was always the center of his production, Tarrassó also made works such as the mural decoration of the church of Santa Maria de Badalona. In Mallorca he also carried out a singular undertaking, planting his easel in the Caves of Campanet to capture the stalactites and stalagmites of its stony cavities, developing a series of works that he presented at the Galerías Costa de Palma in October 1948. Throughout his career Tarrassó was awarded the Pollença Prize at the 1st International Painting Competition in 1962; the Santiago Rusiñol Prize in 1972; and the medals obtained in various editions of the Autumn Salons of Palma de Mallorca: first prize in 1967 and 1973, and honorary prize in 1970. Tarrassó's work is characterized by the great personality of his coloring. His obsession for chromatism determines a deeply sensorial, vitalist and intuitive painting. He is represented in various national and international private collections, as well as in the Museum and Artistic Fund of Porreras (Mallorca) and the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art of Palma.