Manolo Hugué

MANOLO HUGUÉ (Barcelona, 1872 - Caldas de Montbui, Barcelona, 1945).
"Portrait", ca.1940.
Bronze.
Signed on the lower right side.
Size: 32 x 17 x 21 cm.
One of the aspects that Montserrat Blanch, art historian and specialist in the work of Manolo Hugué, highlights as defining the period in which the sculptor lived in Caldes de Montbui (1927-1945) is his attention to the portrait genre. Focusing only on the head, and therefore on pure expression, he succeeded in making the volumetric form the repository of special emotional energy.
Manuel Martínez Hugué, Manolo Hugué, trained at the Escuela de la Lonja in Barcelona. A regular participant in the gatherings at Els Quatre Gats, he became friends with Picasso, Rusiñol, Mir and Nonell. In 1900 he moved to Paris, where he lived for ten years. There he resumed his relationship with Picasso, and became friends with other avant-garde theoreticians such as Apollinaire, Modigliani, Braque and Derain. In the French capital he worked on the design of jewellery and small sculptures, influenced by the work of his friend, the sculptor and goldsmith Paco Durrio. In 1892 he worked with Torcuato Tasso on decorative works for the celebrations of the centenary of the Discovery of America. Between 1910 and 1917, devoted entirely to sculpture, he worked in Ceret, where he brought together a heterogeneous group of artists including Juan Gris, Joaquín Sunyer and, once again, Picasso. During these years he held exhibitions in Barcelona, Paris and New York. In 1932 he was appointed a member of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Jorge in Barcelona. In Hugué's work, what is essential is the relationship with nature, taking into account the human figure as an integrated element in it. This is a characteristic of Noucentista classicism, but in Hugué's hands it goes beyond its limited origins. He usually depicted peasants, although he also depicted bullfighters and dancers - as can be seen on this occasion - always portrayed with a level of detail and an appreciation of textures that reveal his early training as a goldsmith. In his artistic production, Mediterranean tradition, Greek classicism and archaism, and the art of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia coexist with the European avant-garde, which he assimilated and knew first-hand, specifically Matisse's Fauvism and Cubism. Works by Hugué are housed in the MACBA, the Georges Pompidou Centre in Paris, the Museo Nacional de Arte de Cataluña and the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, among many others.