Carlos Nadal

CARLOS NADAL FERRERES (Paris, 1917 – Sitges, Barcelona, 1998).
“Landscape with a Villa, France,” 1970.
Oil on panel.
Signed and dated in the lower right corner.
Measurements: 50 x 80 cm; 70 x 99 cm (frame).

Dated 1970, this work was created during the height of Carlos Nadal’s artistic maturity and is an excellent example of the intensely chromatic style he developed during his decades living in Belgium. The artist transforms a peaceful residence surrounded by vegetation into a composition of extraordinary vitality, where the depiction of the setting is subordinated to color, the rhythm of the brushstrokes, and a deliberately free conception of space.

The architecture occupies the center of the composition, sheltered by the large curved wall in the foreground and partially enveloped by lush vegetation. Nadal constructs the landscape through a succession of emerald greens, turquoises, yellows, oranges, and reds, causing trees and buildings to participate in the same pictorial movement. The fiery tree trunks, the tree crowns rendered with sinuous brushstrokes, and the sky traversed by broad bands of blue accentuate a sense of dynamism that contrasts with the stillness of the depicted scene. A small figure, situated on the path, introduces a human scale and reinforces the almost scenographic character of the whole.

The freedom of perspective, the simplification of forms, and, above all, the primacy of color point directly to the Fauvist sensibility that defines Nadal’s mature work. His move to Brussels in the late 1940s was decisive in this process: the artist himself insisted that it was in Belgium where he discovered a wealth of chromatic nuances that he considered difficult to perceive under the intensity of Mediterranean light. MACBA also notes that the luminosity and vibrant color characteristic of his work developed particularly after he settled in Brussels in 1949.

Carlos Nadal forged a distinguished international career and established a personal artistic language closely linked to Fauvism, in which color became his primary means of expression. Trained at the Escuela Superior de Bellas Artes de San Jorge in Barcelona, he continued his studies in Paris and, from the late 1940s onward, spent much of his career in Belgium. His time in Brussels proved decisive in establishing the intense color palette and compositional freedom that characterize his mature work.
He exhibited extensively in Spain and Europe, at galleries such as Georges Giroux, Brachot, Sala Gaspar, Sala Parés, and Sala Vayreda, and was invited to show his work at the Royal Academy in London. He received institutional recognition early on: in 1950, the Royal Belgian Commission for Museums acquired one of his paintings, and subsequently other works were added to Spanish public collections. His work is represented in institutions such as the MACBA in Barcelona and in Belgian museum collections, a testament to the international renown the artist achieved.