Pau Roig

PAU ROIG I CISA (Premià de Mar, Barcelona, 1879 - Barcelona, 1955).
"Flamenco tavern".
Pastel on paper glued to canvas.
Signed in the lower right corner.
Measurements: 61 x 46 cm; 89 x 54 cm (frame).

Scene of flamenco tavern, with two women in the foreground touched with combs and wrapped in shawls of clear colors. They exchange confidences, oblivious to the group of singers and guitarists in the background of the bar. Pau Roig was known for his ability to capture scenes of customs.

A painter and engraver, Pau Roig trained at the Escuela de La Lonja in Barcelona, and was a disciple of Torrescassana. He became known in 1896, at the Fine Arts Exhibition in Barcelona, and two years later he won the competition for the front and back covers of the Almanaque of "L'Esquella de la Torratxa" for 1899, with his modernist drawings. Since then he collaborated with this magazine, as well as with others such as "Iris" and "Hispana". He also made marquetry designs for the cabinetmaker Gaspar Homar, within the symbolist and Art Nouveau languages, and in 1900 he painted the murals of the Cassadó i Moreu store (now in a private collection). In 1901 he moved to Paris, where he collaborated with the publications "Le Rire", "L'Assiette au beurre" and "Frou-Frou", in addition to achieving fame as a book illustrator, highlighting in this field his work for "La Femme et le Pantin", by Pierre Louys. Roig exhibited in Paris and Brussels, where his work was well known. On the other hand, until 1932 he carried out an important work as an engraver, making mainly landscapes with etching and drypoint. In 1933 he returned to Catalonia and participated, within the Montjuic Salon, in the Spring Exhibitions of the same year and the following two. After a second stay in Paris, between 1939 and 1943, he returned definitively to Barcelona. In Barcelona he showed his work, since 1944, in various solo and group exhibitions. Although he belonged to the Catalan postmodernist generation, his almost constant remoteness kept him separated from the artistic evolution of this school, and instead he was influenced by the French pre-avant-garde currents. His work is characterized by a great sensitivity and, especially in engraving, by the scrupulous craftsmanship of his work. He is currently represented in the National and Catalonian Libraries, as well as in the Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection, among other public and private collections.