Ignacio Gil Sala

IGNACIO GIL SALA, (Barcelona, 1913 - 2003).
"Altar boys with botafumeiro".
Oil on canvas.
Signed in the lower right corner.
Measurements: 55 x 46 cm; 80.50 x 72 cm (frame).
After initiating his artistic formation with only nine years, Ignacio Gil Sala enters the School of Fine Arts of Barcelona, where he had as teachers Félix Mestres and Vicente Borrás. In 1930, while still almost an apprentice, he was awarded the School's bronze medal, and in 1936 he won a scholarship for a study trip to Spain. Throughout his life Gil Sala traveled throughout the Peninsula as well as to different Islamic and Latin American countries. He exhibited his work in Spain, France, the Philippines, Switzerland, the United States, Canada and Colombia, among many other countries, with special mention of his solo exhibitions held in the galleries Costa (Palma de Mallorca, 1940), Augusta (Barcelona, exhibiting periodically since 1940), Lars Laine (Palm Springs, 1952), Toisón (Madrid, 1956), Cano (Madrid, exhibiting biannually since 1958) and Cézanne (Cannes, 1956 and 1966). From 1997 until his death, he showed his work regularly in the galleries of the Grup d'Art Escolà, which dedicated several tribute exhibitions to him after his death. The artistic and human recognitions have been constant, although not as many as he deserved, and as an example we will mention the street dedicated to him by the town of Castelldefels, where he lived, or the fact that the Insular Council of the Balearic Islands gave him an award for the numerous times he immortalized the lands, the people and the sea of Ibiza. An extraordinary draughtsman, agile with pencil and charcoal, Gil Sala immortalized landscapes from all over Spain, Mediterranean fishing ports, different European cities, etc., all captured through a resounding brushstroke and a studied coloring. His awards include the Silver Medal of the School of Fine Arts of Barcelona (1930), the First Medal at the International Exhibition of Palma de Mallorca (1941), the prize at the National Exhibition of Barcelona (1944), and two first prizes and an extraordinary first prize at the Painters of Africa Exhibition (1955, 1960 and 1961). Likewise, after his death several tributes were dedicated to him, among them the exhibitions held in the galleries Terra Ferma in Lleida in 2004 and Salduba in Zaragoza in 2007, both belonging to the Escolà Group.