Jaume Morera Galicia

JAUME MORERA GALICIA (Lleida, 1854 - Madrid, 1927).
"Santa Coloma de Queralt. 1877.
Oil on panel.
Presents inscription on the back.
Signed in the lower right corner.
Measurements: 35 x 23 cm.
In this work, Jaume Morera places us in the heart of the daily life of Santa Coloma de Queralt, place where the artist lived during 1877. The scene is represented with a sensitivity that oscillates between realism and impressionism, giving a deep interest to the effects of light. The painting shows a lively street, where people and beasts of burden circulate: donkeys and horses that accompany the daily activity of the inhabitants. It is not a grandiloquent scene, but a fragment of common life, captured with almost documentary attention, but endowed with an atmosphere that transcends the merely descriptive. In this early work, the painter already announces his ability to combine direct observation with a broader conception of the landscape and the urban scene.
A landscape painter, Morera trained in Barcelona, Madrid and Rome, where he was a boarder. On his return to Spain in 1877, he set up his studio in Lleida and made numerous trips around the Iberian Peninsula, painting his various landscapes. Finally he settled in Madrid, from where he traveled to Holland, Belgium and France, following in the footsteps of his master. He participated in exhibitions in Spain and abroad, especially the Universal Exhibition in Paris. He obtained numerous distinctions throughout his career, including the second medal at the National Exhibition of Fine Arts in Madrid in 1878, the first medals in the editions of 1892 and 1901, and the posthumous diploma of honor at the International Exhibition of Barcelona in 1929. Morera Galicia represents a landscape movement opposed to impressionism and luminism, in favor of the direct experience of nature and attracted by the Nordic landscapes. In 1917 he founded the Morera Galicia Museum of Modern Art in Lleida, which houses an extensive collection of his own works and those of other excellent artists, among which stand out those bequeathed to him by his master. He is also represented in the Prado Museum, the Fine Arts Museum of Valencia and the San Telmo Museum in San Sebastian, among others.