Xavier Nogués

XAVIER NOGUÉS CASAS (Barcelona, 1873 - 1941).
"The four seasons".
Tempera on paper.
With Dau al Set Gallery label on the back.
Signed.
Measurements: 30 x 32 cm; 50 x 46,5 cm (frame of two of them); 32 x 67 cm; 50 x 84 cm (frame of two of them).

Drawer, engraver and painter, Nogués studied commerce, without vocation, and studied painting in the academy of Martínez Altés. During the following years he combined his work in a warehouse with night courses at the Borrell Academy. Around 1896 he visited Madrid, where he was strongly impressed by Goya. He then decided to dedicate himself fully to art and to attend the Borrell Academy more assiduously, where he came into contact with the group El Rovell de l'Ou. In 1899 he obtained his first recognition, being awarded a runner-up prize in the Vilanova i la Geltrú carnival poster competition, held at Els Quatre Gats. In 1901 he went to Paris with Alexandre de Cabanyes and Francesc Sardà, and there he attended the Colarossi and Viti academies. He returned to Barcelona, although he continued to visit the French capital regularly, and in 1902 he exhibited two marine paintings at the Ateneo Barcelonés. That same year he won second prize in the important poster competition for the Mercè festivities. He exhibited at the Sala Parés as a member of the Association of Catalan Painters and Sculptors (1905), and continued to combine painting with disciplines such as posters, illustration and even designs for ceramics. He collaborated with publications such as "Hojas Selectas", "Papitu", the "Almanac dels Noucentistes", "L'Esquella de la Torraxta" and "Picarol", among many other outstanding magazines of the time. He also published sets of illustrations, such as "La Cataluña pintoresca" (1919) and "50 ninots" (1922). He also decorated the lobbies of Gaudí's Pedrera and painted the murals in the basement of the Galerías Layetanas (1915). From 1909 he also dedicated himself to engraving, excelling especially in etching, aquatint and drypoint. He decorated ceramic pieces by Francesc Quer, and glass by his friend Ricard Crespo. In 1928 he further expanded his field of work by creating the decorations and costumes for the opera "El giravolt de maig". As a member of the artistic advisory board of the 1929 Barcelona International Exposition, he was, together with Miguel Utrillo, Francesc Folguera and Ramón Raventós, the architect of the Poble Espanyol de Montjuic. Years after his death, in 1967, the city of Barcelona organized a major retrospective exhibition of his work, and in 1972 he exhibited the important legacy of his widow, Isabel Escalada, to the city. Although belonging to the postmodernist generation, with which he actively collaborated, Nogués did not assume a strong personality until the early years of Noucentisme. He became the most representative artist of this complex movement for his synthesizing language of all the factions that integrated it. He perfectly structured his compositions, without ever losing the appearance of spontaneity. If as a painter he approached a certain idealism, as a draftsman and engraver he adhered to a humorism of realistic roots, marked by a certain aggressive expressionism that brings him close to the work of George Grosz. He is currently represented in the Nogués Foundation, as well as in the National Art Museum of Catalonia and others.