Apel.les Fenosa

APEL.LES FENOSA FLORENSA (Barcelona, 1899 - Paris, 1988).
Untitled.
Bronze.
Signed.
Measurements: 17 x 6 x 6 cm; 20 x 9 x 9 x 9 cm (base).
Trained with Enric Casanovas, Fenosa travelled to Paris for the first time in 1921. There he held a personal exhibition in 1925, which was presented by Max Jacob. Back in Barcelona in 1929, he held exhibitions at the Sala Parés in 1930, 1933 and 1936. At the end of the Civil War he settled again in Paris in 1939, integrating definitively in his artistic life. There he met great intellectuals of the time such as Theophile Briand, Cocteau, Paul Éluard, Colette, Henri Michaux, Supervielle, Genet and Tzara, and even had a romance with Coco Chanel. During these years his art discovered a vegetal world, populated by flaming feminine figures, which keep fresh the imprint of the artist's fingers. Her works are daughters of the earth, from which they emerge, fruit of the imagination, with all their wild and natural character. He had repeated solo exhibitions at the Parisian galleries Zborowsky and Jacques Dubourg, as well as at the Hanover Gallery in London (1954), the Paul Rosenberg Gallery in New York (1960 and 1961), in Tokyo (1966 and 1981) and Madrid (1967 and 1976), among other cities. He also participated in important collective exhibitions such as the Salons de Mai and de Jeune Sculpture in Paris, the Biennale d'Anvers, the International Exhibition of the Rodin Museum, the Biennale de Carrara, the Contemporary French Sculpture of the School of Paris, the Petit Bronze, etc. The Rodin Museum dedicated an anthological exhibition to him in 1980. He also worked in portraiture, painting friends and colleagues. In France he made several monuments, such as the one in Oradour-sur-Glane or the sphinx emblem of the Conseil Constitutionnel in Paris. He is currently represented in the foundation that bears his name in El Vendrell (Tarragona), the Patio Herreriano Museum in Valladolid, the National Library in Madrid, the Rodin Museum in Paris and the Palau de la Virreina in Barcelona, among others.