Antoni Costa

ANTONI COSTA TORRAS (Barcelona, 1904 - 1965).
"Landscape with figures".
Oil on canvas.
Signed in the upper right corner.
It presents damages.
Measurements: 67 x 98 cm; 72 x 102 cm (frame).
Antoni Costa was formed in Buenos Aires, in the Circle of Sant Lluc of Barcelona and in the FAD. Friend and companion of Sandalinas and Gasch, he exhibited in Barcelona since 1928 and, after the postwar period, also in Mallorca. In 1955 he was awarded in the competition of the Mediterranean Games. Considered one of the best representatives of social realism in Catalonia, he focused his work on the themes of labor, misery, prostitutes, immigrants, etc., with a language that reacts against avant-garde academicism and the concept of art for art's sake. In his production three stages can be distinguished. The first one, developed until 1938, is related to cubism, and especially with the figures of La Fresnaye and Léger. Between 1939 and 1958, he came closer to Marie Blanchard, and finally evolved into a third stage, motivated by his failure before the official critics and the new avant-garde, in which he shunned any public manifestation, focusing on works of more conventional technique and cruder subject matter, partially collected in the exhibition dedicated to him in Barcelona in 1966.