Joan Rebull

JOAN REBULL TORROJA (Reus, 1899 - Barcelona, 1981).
"Cap de noi".
Marble.
Signed.
Measurements: 40 x 20 x 16 cm.

This bust of a boy, sculpted in white marble by the Catalan artist Joan Rebull, embodies a delicate synthesis between classical idealization and modern sensibility that characterizes much of his work. With a sober and restrained modeling, Rebull offers us a youthful representation charged with inner stillness and restrained dignity. The figure is presented with a serenity that transcends the age of the sitter. The facial features, softly defined, reveal a search for formal purity: the broad forehead, the slightly curved nose and the closed mouth, barely insinuated, seem subtracted from the world of passions to insert themselves in an almost spiritual plane. The eyes, devoid of pupils, reinforce this atmosphere of withdrawal and self-absorption.

Considered the most outstanding Catalan sculptor of his time, Joan Rebull began in the world of sculpture in his hometown, with the sculptor Pau Figueres. In 1915 he moved to Barcelona to begin his artistic training at the School of Fine Arts of La Lonja, while working in the workshop of the marble artist Bechini. In 1916 he made his individual debut with an exhibition at the Centro de Lectura in Reus, and the following year he founded, together with other artists, the group known as "Els Evolucionistes", which aimed to replicate the Catalan Noucentisme. In 1921 he traveled to London and Paris, cities where he was particularly impressed by the ancient art housed in their museums. Between 1926 and 1929 he lived in the French capital and took part in the Salon des Indépendants, although he also sent works to exhibitions in Barcelona. In Paris he was the first artist hired by the prominent Catalan art dealer Joan Merli. On his return he was appointed president of the new Montjuic Salon (1932) and a member of the Sant Jordi Academy (1934), took part in various exhibitions in Madrid and Barcelona and, in 1938, won the Campeny Prize at the Salon d'Automne in Barcelona. After the war, he went into exile in Paris, where he took an active part in artistic life, attending the exhibition "Le Jeune Sculpture Française" and the Salons d'Automne. He returns to Barcelona in 1948, and three years later he obtains a great prize in the I Bienal Hispanoamericana de Arte de Madrid. In 1962 he was appointed professor at the School of Fine Arts of Sant Jordi, and shortly before his death he was awarded the gold medal of the Generalitat de Catalunya. A child of noucentista perfectionism and a great draughtsman, Rebull works with great technical mastery and certainty in the path to follow. His is a direct and anti-rhetorical sculpture, based on a serene and essential vision of reality. His style can be defined as a reencounter with the source of classicism, from which he never copies the consequences. He is represented in the National Art Museum of Catalonia, the Reina Sofia National Center, the Barcelona City Hall, the Monastery of Montserrat and the Palau de la Música Catalana, among other centers.