Joan Barbarà

JOAN BARBARÀ I GÓMEZ (Barcelona, 1927-2013).
"Empuries, inici d'un retorn". 1992.
Etching, copy 5/55.
Signed and justified by hand.
Presents rust stains on the inside.
Measurements: 59 x 46,5 cm.

"Empúries, inici d'un retorn" by Joan Barbarà is a bibliophile book, a special and limited edition. It is the result of a collaboration between the engraving artist Joan Barbarà and the philologist and neohellenist Alexis Eudald Solà. It contains texts by Solà and engravings by Barbarà, and arose from a trip they both made to Greece and the Mediterranean. Barbarà's illustrations complement the texts that evoke legends, sea chants and the geography of the islands, as well as architectural remains of ancient civilizations.

An engraver and painter, Joan Barbarà is a member of the Miró Foundation in Palma de Mallorca, and was also an advisor to the Picasso-Raventós Foundation, Ediciones Estampe de arte gráfico and Graphosverlag in Switzerland. He held his first exhibition in Barcelona in 1956, and later showed his work also abroad, in Paris and Bologna. In 1954 he opened his own studio, from which he collaborated as a printmaker with prominent artists of the contemporary European avant-garde, including Masson, Rouault, Villon, Kokoschka, Fontana, Vasarely, Miró, Picasso and Tàpies, among others.