Josep Maria Subirachs

JOSEP MARIA SUBIRACHS SITJAR (Barcelona, 1927-2014).
"Impersonal", 1966.
Bronze and stoneware.
Work reproduced on the Espai Subirachs website.
A similar sideboard appears reproduced in "Subirachs", Francesc Fontbona, Daniel Giralt-Miracle and Judith Subirachs, p. 156.
Measurements: 46 x 36 x 6 cm.

Based on the information provided by the Espai Subirachs, we know that two distinctive elements of Subirachs' artistic period between 1961 and 1970 are the niche, as an architectural allusion, and the turned head. The latter figure, which resembles a chess pawn and arises from the rotation of a face on itself, is multiplied in the work "Impersonal", which is being auctioned. In this piece, an asperon structure with nine niches houses nine bronze turned heads. The technique of embedding a body in a cavity will be a recurring resource in many of Subirachs' neo-figurative works.

After entering the workshop of a gilder who was fond of sculpture at the age of fourteen, where he modeled his first works in clay, in 1942 he entered the workshop of sculptor Enrique Monjó as an apprentice. Five years later he began working as an assistant to Enrique Casanovas. In 1948 he showed his work for the first time at the Casa del Libro in Barcelona, and in 1950 he founded, together with other artists, the group Postectura. In 1951 he travels to Paris to complete his training, with a scholarship from the French Institute of Barcelona. He returns to Barcelona in 1953 and is awarded the Sculpture Prize at the Jazz Salon. After two years working and exhibiting in Belgium he returns to Spain, and in 1958 he is awarded the Gran Premio San Jorge of the Diputación de Barcelona and the "Julio González" of the Cámara Barcelonesa de Arte. Since then he has been commissioned for public works, among which his important sculptural work on the façade of the Passion of the Sagrada Familia stands out. He has held numerous solo and group exhibitions in Europe, Asia and the United States, and in 1988 he was awarded the Medal of Merit in the Fine Arts. In 1980 he was elected a member of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Jorge. He is represented at the Centro Reina Sofía, the MACBA Museums in Barcelona, Ibiza, Seville and New York, the Fine Arts Museums of Bilbao, Birmingham, the Vatican, Taipei and Nebraska, the Museo al Aire Libre del Paseo de la Castellana in Madrid, the Petit Palais Museum in Geneva and the Millesgärden in Stockholm, among others.