Carles Nadal

CARLES NADAL FARRERAS (Paris, 1917 - Sitges, Barcelona, 1998).
"Estación del Mediodía, Madrid, 1910".
Mixed media on paper.
Signed in the lower right corner.
Measurements: 39 x 30 cm; 59,5 x 48,5 cm (frame).

La Estación del Mediodía is the historical name by which the current Madrid-Atocha Station, the main railway complex of the Spanish capital, was known. This traditional name is due to the fact that the railway company that originally built and operated it was called MZA (Compañía de los Caminos de Hierro de Madrid a Zaragoza y Alicante). This route headed south (Alicante) and east, which were formerly associated with the direction where the sun is at noon.

The son of Santiago Nadal, a painter and decorator based in Paris, Carles Nadal has lived in Barcelona since childhood, where the family moved due to his father's illness. At the age of thirteen he began to work as an apprentice in a decorative painting workshop, and in 1936 he received a scholarship from the City Council of Barcelona to study at the School of Fine Arts of Sant Jordi. At the outbreak of the Civil War he was recruited into the Republican army, with which he fought on the fronts of Aragon and Tremp. At the beginning of 1939 he crosses the French border and is interned in the refugee camp of Saint Cyprien, where he remains for several months. He manages to escape and cross the border again, but is arrested and imprisoned in Figueras. Under parole he returns to Barcelona, where he continues his artistic career while simultaneously working as a decorator and studying Fine Arts. In 1941 he makes his debut in a collective exhibition at the Dalmau Gallery, obtaining good reviews. He finishes his studies with good grades, obtaining the recognition of teachers and professors, some of whom will become friends and collaborators of the young Nadal. In fact, it was one of them, Luis Muntané, who facilitated his first individual exhibition in 1944, at La Pinacoteca in Barcelona. Two years later he moved to Paris, again with a grant from the Barcelona City Council. There he works and exhibits with the group Présence de l'Homme, as well as participating in the Salons d'Automne. Later, thanks to a scholarship from the French State, he attends the Paris School of Fine Arts. In 1948 he married Flore Joris, establishing his residence in Brussels, where he remained until the mid-seventies. In Belgium he discovered, as he himself repeatedly stated, light and color. During these years he will continue to show his work in Spain and Belgium as well as in France, Germany, Holland, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States. Nadal's painting is post-impressionist, intensely colorful, and is based on the search for chromatic force as the most direct means of communication. His awards include the Grand Prix de Spa, Belgium, and his appointment as a member of the Royal Academy of London. His works can be found in the MACBA, the Spa Museum in Belgium and the Royal Museum of Brussels.