Laureano Barrau

LAUREANO BARRAU BUÑOL (Barcelona, 1864 – Santa Eulària des Riu, Ibiza, 1957).
“Lute Player,” 1984, Paris.
Watercolor on paper.
Signed, dated, and located in the upper left corner.
Measurements: 21 x 12.5 cm; 33 x 26 cm (frame).

Laureano Barrau’s paintings of ordinary people are among the most highly regarded aspects of his body of work. Trained in Barcelona and Paris, and closely linked to Ibiza since the late 19th century, Barrau developed a genre style of great technical quality that, far from mere folkloric anecdote, elevates everyday life through an extraordinary sensitivity to light, color, and the human figure. His style is reminiscent of Joaquín Sorolla’s Mediterranean luminism, though with a more intimate and serene character.

Laureano Barrau was born into a bourgeois family, the son of an industrial engineer and businessman. He began his training at the School of Fine Arts in Barcelona, where he studied under Antonio Caba. Shortly thereafter, he traveled to Madrid to further his education by studying the great masters at the Prado Museum. In 1884, the Barcelona City Council awarded him the Fortuny scholarship to continue his studies in Rome for three years. However, using the money from the travel grant, Barrau moved to Paris, where he enrolled at the Academy of Fine Arts, with Jean-Léon Gérôme as his tutor. In 1885, now in Rome, he studied the Italian masters and began sending the works required of him as a scholarship recipient back to Barcelona. Beginning in 1887, he exhibited regularly at the Parés Gallery in Barcelona, one of the most important Spanish galleries of the time and the most prominent in Catalonia. That year, his painting “The Surrender of Gerona” earned him great critical and public acclaim, as it represented a wholly personal approach to the genre of history painting—one that was more vibrant and emotive. At the same time, Barrau frequently participated in official exhibitions both nationally and internationally. In 1888, he was awarded a second medal at the Barcelona International Exhibition and a second prize at the Brussels World’s Fair. Three years later, in 1891, he was granted the title of associate member of the Salon of the National Society of Fine Arts in Paris, and the following year he was awarded a third medal at the National Exhibition of Fine Arts in Madrid for his work “The Weeder.” In 1904, he won a second medal at this same exhibition for “Taponeras del Ampurdán.” Barrau also held numerous solo exhibitions and participated in group shows in Paris, Barcelona, Madrid, New York, and Rome. In 1909, he settled in Buenos Aires, where his work enjoyed the same success and recognition it had in Spain and Europe, and after returning, he settled permanently in Ibiza in 1911. From there, he continued to exhibit his work both in Spain and abroad, and in 1929 he was named a “Societarie” of the Paris Salons. Barrau’s work began with a style rooted in his neoclassical training and evolved into a new aesthetic characterized by luminosity and chromatic transparencies. Today, the work he created in Santa Eulària des Riu (Ibiza) toward the end of his life is considered the finest of his body of work. Laureano Barrau’s work is currently represented in the Prado Museum, the Getty Museum in California, the Museums of Contemporary Art in Madrid and Barcelona, his house-museum in Santa Eulària des Riu, and in various museums in Paris, Buenos Aires, Montevideo, and Rio de Janeiro, as well as in major national and international private collections.