Ricardo Opisso

RICARDO OPISSO I SALA (Tarragona, 1880 - Barcelona, 1966).
"El paseo de Toulouse-Lautrec", 1899.
Watercolour, ink and pencil on paper.
Signed and dated in the lower right corner.
The paper has stains.
Size: 30.5 x 41 cm.
As we can appreciate in this watercolour, Ricardo Opisso portrayed characters of the artistic and social life of Paris in the second half of the 19th century, among them Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, painter and poster artist.
Opisso was a painter, draughtsman and cartoonist. In his youth he participated in Barcelona's modernist environment, and in fact in 1894 he began to work as an apprentice with Antoni Gaudí on the Sagrada Família. Two years later, backed by the architect, he became a member of the Círculo Artístico de Sant Lluc, with which he exhibited from then on in the Sala Parés. He was linked to the group Els Quatre Gats, along with Ramon Casas, Manuel Hugué, Isidre Nonell and Pablo Picasso, among others. At the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century he made a trip to Paris, where Picasso and Hugué were already there. Throughout his career Opisso worked as an illustrator in publications such as "Cu-cut!" and "L'Esquella de la Torratxa", signing drawings aimed at political satire, in a style close to Art Nouveau. In 1907 he took part in the Fine Arts Exhibition in Barcelona and was awarded a third-class medal. Due to the dictatorship of Miguel Primo de Rivera, Opisso abandoned political satire and his drawings moved towards genre themes, specialising in popular scenes. His works from this period are characterised by the presentation of motley crowds of people in popular Barcelona settings. After exhibiting several times in succession at the Sala Parés, he held his first solo exhibition in 1935 at the Syra galleries in Barcelona. During the post-war period he continued to exhibit in various galleries in Barcelona, and reaped considerable success with both critics and the public. In 1953 he received recognition from his hometown at the 4th Tarragona Art Fair. Most of his work is kept in the Opisso Museum in Barcelona, but it is also present in the National Art Museum of Catalonia and the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Strasbourg. In terms of exhibitions, the one held at the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in 2004 under the title "Catalan Painting, from Naturalism to Noucentisme", in which his work "Carnival" was exhibited, is particularly noteworthy.