Josep Aragay

JOSEP ARAGAY I BLANCHART (Barcelona, 1889 - Breda, Gerona, 1973).
"Futbol Club Barcelona Player".
Mixed media on paper. Drawing for magazine.
Signed with initial in the lower right corner.
Published.
Measurements: 14,5 x 10,5 cm; 30 x 27 cm (frame).

Painter, ceramist and theoretician of the art, he was one of the preceptors of the novecentismo. In 1911 Eugenio D'Ors entrusted him with the plastic direction of the "Almanac dels Noucentistes". He organizes his first individual exhibition in 1913, in the Dalmau Galleries. Between 1916 and 1917 he made a trip to Italy, and was commissioned to make the tiles for the fountain of the Portal del Angel in Barcelona. After a period as a professor of ceramic decoration at the Escuela Superior de Bells Oficis, in 1925 he retired to Breda, where he founded a ceramic workshop. His initial expressionism was transformed, under the influence of Galí, into a passionate and violent baroque style. After 1915 he approached constructivism, linking at the same time with the first Italian Renaissance. As a theorist he had great influence on the Catalan artists of the twenties, in the desire to create a national art. The bulk of his work is collected in the Josep Aragay Municipal Museum in Breda.