Ricardo Urgell

RICARDO URGELL CARRERAS (Barcelona, 1874 - 1924).
"Day of work".
Oil on canvas.
Signed in the lower right corner.
Measurements: 63 x 44 cm; 74 x 55 cm (frame).

Son and disciple of the landscape painter Modesto Urgell, Ricardo Urgell Carreras studied at the School of La Lonja in Barcelona, where he was taught by Antonio Caba. From a very young age he stood out for his facility in composition and coloring. In addition, together with his partner Anglada Camarasa, he explored the possibilities of artificial light, installing in his studio in Gràcia a complete battery of electric lighting for painting. His style went through impressionism and post-impressionism in an aestheticist line, and his works are of good workmanship and rich palette. His main themes were taken from everyday life: theaters, cabarets, markets, etc., which he captured as realistic snapshots. He also dealt with landscapes and, in his early years, figures and portraits. Ricardo Urgell was a professor at the School of Fine Arts in Barcelona from 1902, and was fully integrated in the Artistic and Literary Society of Catalonia, which had been founded in 1900 by his father, Luis Graner and Enrique Galwey. This fact, together with his enmity with the painter Isidro Nonell, meant that he remained on the fringes of the post-modernist renovationist groups, even though his way of painting made him a renovator in his own right. In 1899 he held his first individual exhibition at the Sala Parés, where he held another personal exhibition again in 1917. Throughout his career he also took part in official competitions, being awarded in the General Exhibitions of Fine Arts of Barcelona in 1896 and 1907, in the National Exhibitions of Madrid in 1897, 1910, 1917 and 1920, in Buenos Aires in 1910 and in the International Exhibitions of Brussels (1909) and Barcelona (1911), obtaining in the latter a first medal. Likewise, at the 1923 Barcelona Art Exhibition he was given a room of honor. Ricardo Urgell is currently widely represented at the MACBA.