Ramón Casas

RAMÓN CASAS I CARBÓ (Barcelona, 1866–1932)
"Portrait of a Gentleman with a Hat and Cane"
Mixed media on paper.
Signed in the lower right corner.
Measurements: 60 x 34 cm; 95.5 x 68.5 cm (with frame).

This figure of a gentleman in a dark suit, depicted with a restrained and distinguished demeanor, is fully in keeping with the artist’s portraiture, which focused on the bourgeois and intellectual society of his time.

Here, Casas displays a fluid and concise technique, based on the predominance of black and the expressive use of line, which defines the silhouette and volumes without the need for meticulous detail. The face, the collar of the shirt, and the highlights on the shoes concentrate the main points of light, reinforcing the elegance of the composition as a whole. The composition, sober and set against a neutral background, gives the subject center stage, in keeping with the modern and direct style that characterized the painter’s works on paper.

The work is part of the famous series of charcoal portraits and related techniques that Casas dedicated to prominent figures in Catalan and Spanish cultural, political, and social life. The MNAC preserves an important collection of these original portraits in its Department of Drawings and Prints, a testament to Casas’s significance as a visual chronicler of fin-de-siècle society.

Ramón Casas i Carbó was one of the leading figures of Catalan Modernism. He was a key figure in the circle of Els Quatre Gats, a central hub of Barcelona’s Modernist movement, and maintained a close relationship with Santiago Rusiñol, with whom he shared artistic and cultural interests. His works are held in institutions such as the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, which lists him as Ramon Casas Carbó, born in Barcelona in 1866 and died in 1932; the Museo Nacional del Prado; the Museu del Cau Ferrat in Sitges, where his works can be seen alongside those of Rusiñol and other Catalan artists; the Reina Sofía Museum, the Museu del Modernisme in Barcelona, the Montserrat Museum, the Carmen Thyssen Collection, and the Cercle del Liceu.