José Mongrell Torrent

JOSÉ MONGRELL TORRENT, (Valencia, 1870 - Barcelona, 1937).
"Girls in the meadow", 1895.
Oil on panel.
Signed and dated in the lower right corner.
With label on the back.
Measurements: 59 x 35.5 cm; 67 x 43 cm (frame).
José Mongrell studied at the School of Fine Arts of San Carlos de Valencia, where he was a disciple of Ignacio Pinazo and Joaquín Sorolla. He was gaining artistic renown thanks to his participation in numerous competitions and exhibitions in Madrid and Barcelona. In 1897 he made, with great success, the bullfighting poster for the San Jaime Fair in Valencia, and in fact his poster for the July Fair in Valencia in 1912 was reedited in 1971 on the occasion of the centenary of these festivities. He obtained a teaching post at the San Jorge School of Fine Arts in Barcelona, where he lived for the rest of his life. From this period, the work he did for the Palace of the Generalitat de Cataluña, in charge of the Diputación de Barcelona, stands out, as well as his portrait of King Alfonso XIII. He also made modernist style mosaics, such as those of the great arch of the Mercado de Colón and the façade of the Estación del Norte, both in Barcelona. Mongrell was devoted to genre genre, portraiture and landscape, and was a master of capturing the moment, making his scenes acquire vitality and dynamism, through bright and naturalistic colors and lights. Traditionally pigeonholed as a disciple of Sorolla, Mongrell only learned from the master that which served to extend his art. The painter developed his work somewhere between regionalism and modernism, but a certain French-influenced symbolism can also be appreciated in his work. In fact, Mongrell was characterized by emphasizing the content, attributing to the image a meaning that goes beyond pure appearance. At a time when great historical, idealistic and dramatic compositions triumphed, this painter developed a style of painting concerned with capturing the past and the present from an everyday, friendly and picturesque perspective, generally far removed from the grandiloquence and theatricality of academic history painting. Despite his technical mastery, Mongrell did not fall like others into a refined mannerism at the service of an unimportant theme, but developed a fully personal language, characterized by its dynamism and expressive freedom. Currently, José Mongrell is represented in the Museo de Bellas Artes San Pío V and the Museo Nacional de Cerámica y de Artes Suntuarias González Martí of Valencia, the Museo de Bellas Artes of Asturias, Badajoz and Pontevedra, the Museo Nacional de Arte de Cataluña, the Rijksmuseum of Amsterdam, the Museo de La Habana and the Museo de Bellas Artes of Buenos Aires, among others.