Josep Viladomat

JOSEP VILADOMAT MASSANAS (Manlleu, Barcelona, 1899 - Escaldes-Engordany, Andorra, 1989).
"The model".
Patinated bronze on wooden base.
Signed on the right side of the base.
Measurements: 74 x 23 x 17 cm; 2,5 x 26 x 20 cm (wooden base).

The female figure, of classic canon and Mediterranean aesthetics, adopts a soft contrapposto, enhancing the subtle silhouette of her turned limbs. Completely naked, except for the heels she still wears, she displays a flirtatious gesture while manipulating her pearl necklace.

A renowned sculptor, Josep Viladomat initially worked in Barcelona as a stonemason for other sculptors, as well as in a mold company for artistic reproductions and in the workshops of Eusebi Arnau, Rafael Atché and Joan Borrell Niolau. He participated in the founding in 1917 of the group Los Evolucionistas, together with Rebull and Granyer, being the only sculptor. This group sought to react to modernism with the search for a realism based on the Catalan Baroque, as well as his great admiration for Maillol and the Greek sculptors. Viladomat exhibited for the first time in 1918, and in 1923 he received for his "Maternidad" the first prize at the Municipal Exhibition of Fine Arts in Barcelona, which allowed him to afford a trip to Italy and Paris. His first individual exhibition would take place in 1929, on his return from this trip. During the following years his successes followed one after the other, winning the Campeny Prize for sculpture in 1936 and the prize at the Fine Arts Exhibition organized by the Ministry of Public Instruction in Barcelona in 1938. During these years he also took part in the decoration of the culture and finance departments of the Generalitat. Before the war he had made the "Monument to Fortuny" in Reus, the "San Francisco de Asís" in Montserrat, the "Monument to Pearson" in the district of Pedralbes and the one dedicated to "The Republic" for the area called Cinc d'Oros in Barcelona. Later he moved to Andorra, and on his return in 1950 he accepted all kinds of commissions, from processional processions to the equestrian statue of General Franco, including public fountains, monuments and decorative sculptures for parks, such as "La Puntaire" in the Montjuic Park in Barcelona. Apart from the Mediterranean style typical of the Catalan sculptors of his generation, Viladomat developed a realistic style that, passing through stages of Donatello's influence, took the form of works of a certain modernized virtuosic anecdotalism. This sculptor is currently represented in the National Art Museum of Catalonia, as well as in the Escaldes-Engordany Art Center, where the collection of sculptures previously exhibited in the Viladomat Museum has been transferred.