Emilio Grau Sala

EMILIO GRAU SALA (Barcelona, 1911 - Paris, 1975).
Untitled, 1953.
Watercolor on cardboard.
Attached New Year's greeting of 1953, where the work is reproduced.
Signed, dated and located (Paris) in the lower right corner.
Measurements: 31 x 39 cm; 44 x 51,5 cm (frame).
This painting was used as the main motif for the New Year's greeting of the Perellada Restaurant. Starring an elegant woman, Grau Sala unfolds before her a profuse still life that stands out for its sumptuousness and abundance, arranged on an infinite table that expands towards the spectator, turning him into one more diner and being invited by the artist to be part of the work in an active way. Behind the young woman, the background is defined by a black tonality that is interrupted by the presence of a large Christmas tree in the center of the scene.
Son of the draftsman Juan Grau Miró, Grau Sala combined his attendance at the School of Fine Arts in Barcelona with an essentially self-taught training. In 1930 he held his first exhibition at the Badriñas gallery in Barcelona. At the beginning of the Civil War, in 1936, he moved to Paris, where he settled in the Spanish artists' colony of Montparnasse. That same year he was awarded the first Carnegie Prize. In the twenty-five years he stayed there, he was closely acquainted with the avant-garde, although he always opted for a colorist figuration, derived from impressionism and fauvism. It was a path already taken by the commercial circuit, surpassed in terms of novelty by cubism and surrealism, but which was kept alive at a high level thanks to masters such as Bonnard, Chagall and Dufy. In fact, he soon became known in Paris as the successor of the Impressionist spirit and values, directly related to Bonnard and Vuillard. This stylistic choice of Grau Sala conditioned that of his wife, Ángeles Santos, who abandoned her singular surrealism for a more conventional landscape, a decision that critics did not hesitate to regret. The success of his style led Grau Sala to devote himself also to graphic work (engravings, lithographs, illustrations for novels, posters...), as well as theatrical sets. Works by Emilio Grau Sala are preserved in the National Art Museum of Catalonia, the Esteban Vicente Museum of Contemporary Art and the Óscar Domínguez Institute of Contemporary Art and Culture.