Joaquín Torres García

Joaquín Torres García

seen by Ramon Casas (MNAC).
Born 28 July 1874
Montevideo, Uruguay
Died 8 August 1949 (aged 75)
Montevideo, Uruguay
Nationality Uruguay Spanish Catalan
Education Escuela Oficial de Bellas Artes Barcelona
Known for Painting, Sculpture, Writer, Teacher,Illustrator
Notable work Frescoes of the Generalitat of Barcelona
Movement Modern Art, Constructivism
Patron(s) Prat de la Riba

Joaquín Torres García (28 July 1874 – 8 August 1949), was a Catalan Uruguayan artist, considered as the father of Latin American Constructivism. [1] He is also known for his collaboration with Gaudi creating the stained glass windows for the Cathedral of Palma de Mallorca, and for the frescoes painted in the Palau de la Generalitat of Barcelona.[2]

Biography

1874–1900

Joaquin Torres-Garcia was born in Montevideo, Uruguay on July 28, 1874. The first child from the union of Joaquim Torras Fradera (son of Joan Torras and Rosa Fradera, from Mataró , Spain) and María García Pérez (daughter of José María García, from the Canary Islands, and Misia Rufina Pérez, Uruguayan). In 1861 Torres-Garcia's father had come in a brigantine schooner to make his fortune in South America; he had established the Almacen de Joaquin Torres, a sort of super general store.[3] Torres as a "child examines the picturesque store situated in the old Square of the Wagons, arrival point of the raw material of the country for export to Europe. The colonial Montevideo had a port, trains, and a vibrant population dotted with countless "gauchos" wrapped in capes with whip ready in hand.[4]″ He attends grammar school.

In 1891, Torres Garcia's father decides to return to Mataró, Spain, with his wife and three children. Born a painter, sixteen-year-old Torres-Garcia is delighted.[5] The family settles in Barcelona. Torres García enrolls in the School of Fine Arts (Escuela de Bellas Artes de Barcelona), the Baixas Academy (Academia Baixas) and in the Saint Lluc Artists Circle [6]" . "Torres-García and Picasso were contemporaries. Both initiated their artistic lives in modern Barcelona and, although their artistic interests were diverse, the focus of their attention centered on the representation of ‘modern life’ in both its typical and anecdotal aspects. This was a world of fashionable young ladies, prosperous bourgeoisie, Bohemian writers, picturesque actors, ragged and amusing artists, and so on, whose epicenter and privileged observatory was the cafe Els Quatre Gats, an establishment maintained in the style of Parisian cabarets. The most appropriate medium in which to depict that world was the print, a drawing intended, in many cases, to be reproduced in the illustrated magazines of the time. The language came from Paris; the favorite models were Toulouse-Lautrec and Steinlen.[7]" Torres was an assiduous contributor of drawings in all the principal newspaper and magazines of the time like La Vanguardia and Iris, Barcelona Cómica and La Saeta.

In 1900 Torres Garcia's father died.

1901–1909

Miguel Utrillo writes an article titled "Joaquin Torres-Garcia, Decorator[8]" in Pel i Pluma, a portrait by Ramon Casas, photographs of several paintings by Torres, one on the cover of the magazine and his first article called "Impressions".

Antoni Gaudí commissions Torres vitreaux for the cathedral Palma Cathedral. ″One of the key events in his career was his intervention (between 1902 and 1905) in the High Altar of the Cathedral of Palma de Majorca, a masterpiece of Spanish Gothic, for which he made the lateral stained glass windows and the small rose window in the apse. His interpretation, of the Marian symbols carved in a stone placed above the cathedral's main entrance from the Song of Songs- in the words of Baltasar Coll Tomas - is one of the many dialogues proposed by Torres. Whereas approached from a symbolic/thematic perspective or from a universal stance, these symbols, along with the geometrical composition used by the medieval master masons, will be reinterpreted in every stage of Torres's long career: the sun, the moon, the star, the well, the garden, the tower, the temple. The spiritual realm, reason, feelings, the natural or earthly realm, immediate, intermediate, remote; past, present, future.[9]″

″Eugeni d'Ors, the intellectual father (and inventor of the term) noucentisme, praised artworks that Torres Garcia shows at Sala Pares and the Cercle de Sant Lluc that same year. Later will write the prologue to Torres' show in the Galeries Dalmau in 1912 and includes frequent references of Torres' work in La Ben Plantada, the book which summarizes the ideology of the noucentista. But Torres is far from being an adherent of the ideology indicated by D'Ors; his evolution follows his own theoretical elaboration, explicit already in two texts published before the configuration of noucentisme as a trend around 1910: "Augusta et Augusta" (1904) and "La nostra ordinacio I el nostre cami" (1907). In Classicism, Torres searches for model of order, a language and an adequate cultural reference to overcome the realistic tendency of representation and to develop a Catalan art of capable of universal proportions. Objective which coincides with noucentisme, but Torres' radicalness paradoxically separate him from artists who follow this tendency-Sunyer, Canals, Aragay- and ultimately D'Ors.[10] ″

Torres García began teaching at the Mont d’Or school, founded by the pedagogue Joan Palau Vera in Sarrià.

1909 Marries Manuela Piña i Rubíes, a Catalonian, with whom he will have four children.

1910-1919

Travels to Brussels to paint a Pavilion in the International Exhibition of Brussels.Lives in Paris, acquainting himself with the ancient and the avant-garde trends. Though different, his art shares values with cubism and the theories exemplified in the exhibition organized and named by Jacques Villon in honor of Luca Paccioli, Section d'Or (Golden Section); an exhibition first shown in Paris. First trip to Italy and Switzerland, observes the ancient and the modern: futurism.In May 1913 he published his first book, Notes sobre Art ("Notes on Art") and founds the Escuela de Decoración (School of Decoration/Decorative Arts) in Sarrià. For the next five years he plans and executes the decoration of the monumental atrium of the Municipal Palace of Barcelona, employing an "Iconostasis" composition, applied to a "pagan" subject matter and then to a modern theme, proving that classic is not solely associated to the Greek. He paints with orthogonal lines the rhythms of the structure used. An evolution he describes in "El Descubrimiento de si mismo", and in the manifest "Evolucionista" published in 1916. This same composition he will use later in the "Constructivist" works. He designs, builds and decorates with frescoes, his home in Tarrasa «Mon Repos". First collages.

1920-1922

Departs a second time for Paris, with thirty-two crates full of his paintings. After an encounter with his friend Picasso, his work turns to cubism, while Picasso's to classicism. Seeking to experience a modern city, he travels to New York. Paints a series of portraits, including one of Joseph Stella. The vertical city enhances the orthogonal structure of his cityscapes. Works at painting scenery and costumes of The Great Way, a story of the joyful, the sorrowful, the glorious. Exhibits at The Whitney Studio Club [11] and The Society of Independent Artists together with Stuart Davis and Szukalski.

1922-1924

Returns to Italy. Further development of his Classic and Evolutionistic works. Spain forbids Catalan language, among which Torres- Garcia's writings are included. Death of his mother. Travels to France,Villefranche-sur-Mer.

1925

Moves to Paris for the third time. Series of "fauvist" portraits and “primitive" works. Exhibits in the galleries: Fabre, Carmine, Marck, Zak, Bucher, Charpentier, Pierre, Percier, Petit. Starts with Van Doesburg, the foundations of the three most important movements to promote abstract art;"Cercle et Carre", (principal founder) "Art Concret"; and "Abstraction-Cretation". Integrates within a Neo-Plasticist and Constructivist composition (Classic), universal symbols, geometric representations forming a geometric whole Universal Art.

1933

Leaves for Madrid. Finishes the manuscript of "Arte Constructivo" published in 1935 with under the name "Estructura", dedicated to his friend Piet Mondrian. Teaches and lectures.

1934–1949

1934 At sixty returns for the first time since childhood to Montevideo. Exhibits the work of the "Cercle et Carre" group and reedits the magazine as "Circulo y Cuadrado". As he did in Barcelona he now shapes the artistic education of Uruguay, Argentina, Brazil and Chile. He creates the "Taller Torres Garcia", similar to the European Bauhaus. Publishes several books. Builds the "Monumento Cosmico" and paints mural frescoes at the Hospital Saint Bois. Paints a series of portraits under the name of "Men, Heroes and Monsters ".

1949 Dies August 8 while preparing two exhibitions one at Sidney Janis Gallery in New York and other at Pan American Union in Washington.

Selected Works

Selected Writings

Selected Paintings

Murals

Bibliography

References

  1. ↑ Guggenheim museum collection
  2. ↑ http://www20.gencat.cat/portal/site/msi-dgac/menuitem.e045213d896fc73484276c10b0c0e1a0/?vgnextoid=099b302dabab6310VgnVCM2000009b0c1e0aRCRD&vgnextchannel=099b302dabab6310VgnVCM2000009b0c1e0aRCRD&vgnextfmt=default&pag_col=&idGaleria=&bigId=945381518042312&googleoff=1
  3. ↑ Robbins, Daniel. Joaquin Torres-Garcia 1874-1949. Providence, Museum of Art Rhode Island School of Design, 1970
  4. ↑ Schaefer, Claude. Joaquin Torres-Garcia. Buenos Aires, Editorial Poseidon, 1949.
  5. ↑ Schaefer, Claude. Joaquin Torres-Garcia. Buenos Aires, Editorial Poseidon, 1949.
  6. ↑
  7. ↑ Llorens, Tomas." J.Torres-Garcia, New York, Joaquin Torres-Garcia Archive, 2011.
  8. ↑ Pel i Pluma No. 74
  9. ↑ Arocena, Nicolas. Torres-Garcia- Pythagoras- Plato A Geometric Dialogue, or the Eye of the Soul, Lisboa, Museo Coleccao Berardo, 2008
  10. ↑ Sureda Pons, Joan. Torres-Garcia, Pasion Clasica. Madrid, Ediciones Akal, 1998
  11. ↑ http://cdm16694.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/landingpage/collection/p15405coll1

Robbins, Daniel. Joaquin Torres-Garcia 1874-1949. Providence, Museum of Art Rhode Island School of Design, 1970

Schaefer, Claude. Joaquin Torres-Garcia. Buenos Aires, Editorial Poseidon, 1949.

Llorens, Tomas. J.Torres-Garcia, New York, Joaquin Torres-Garcia Archive, 2011.

Arocena, Nicolas. Torres-Garcia- Pythagoras- Plato A Geometric Dialogue, or the Eye of the Soul, Lisboa, Museo Coleccao Berardo, 2008

Sureda Pons, Joan. Torres-Garcia, Pasion Clasica. Madrid, Ediciones Akal, 1998

External links

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