Joan Llimona

JOAN LLIMONA BRUGUERA (Barcelona, 1860 - 1926).
"Female portrait.
Double-sided charcoal drawing on paper.
Without signature.
Size: 63 x 38 cm; 82 x 56 cm (frame).
Joan Llimona was born into a family of artists, his brother Josep being a famous sculptor also within modernism. He began studying architecture and engineering, but soon abandoned them for painting, which he perfected at the La Lonja School in Barcelona, and later in Rome, where between 1880 and 1882 he accompanied his brother, who had won a scholarship to study sculpture in that city. As early as 1882 he took part in a number of group exhibitions in Barcelona, culminating in 1890 in a personal exhibition at the Sala Parés which was extraordinarily well received. Deeply influenced by his militant Catholicism, which led him into a confrontation with the writer Raimon Casellas, he painted numerous works of religious content, including the vault of the Monastery of Montserrat. Llimona headed the Catholic split within the Modernist movement, which materialised in the founding of the Cercle de Sant Lluc in 1893. In 1896 he won a first medal at the Barcelona Fine Arts Exhibition. Towards 1905 his work was influenced by symbolism, always with religious roots, which is reflected, for example, in the painting of the dining room of the Casa Recolons in Barcelona. An excellent draughtsman, he oriented his work towards a religious mysticism of great sentimental charge, with a careful form and restrained expressiveness, deeply evocative. He published various articles in Barcelona magazines and newspapers such as "La veu de Catalunya", "La barretina", "Catalunya social" and others, almost always on aesthetic themes related to his rigid concept of morality and against blasphemy. He was a member of the Lliga del Bon Mot (literally, League of the Good Word), and of Foment de la Pietat Catalana, both associations defending a conservative concept of morality. He carried out important mural commissions for several Catalan churches, and is currently represented in the MACBA and the Ripoll Archive-Museum, as well as in important private collections.