Joaquim Terruella

JOAQUIN TERRUELLA MATILLA (Barcelona, 1891 - 1957).
"Boats in the harbor".
Oil on cardboard.
Signed in the lower right corner.
Measurements: 21 x 25 cm.; 36 x 39 cm.(frame).

Joaquim Terruella offers an intimate and vibrant vision of the port environment. The scene is clearly inscribed in the Catalan postimpressionism, where the main interest resides in the capture of the light and the changing color of the port more than in the topographical fidelity. The humble support - cardboard - reinforces the spontaneous and direct character of the painting, close to the sketching of nature. Terruella shows here his affinity with the Catalan marine tradition, reinterpreted with a modern sensibility and a strong expressive charge.

Nephew and follower of Segundo Matilla, Joaquín Terruella was also a disciple of Santiago Rusiñol. With the latter he made a trip to Italy in 1923, in addition to spending a season working together in Aranjuez. He also painted in Paris and Palma de Mallorca. He exhibited individually for the first time in the disappeared Goya room in Barcelona, in 1916. From then on he exhibited in Barcelona, especially in the Sala Parés (from 1924), and also showed his impressionist landscapes in galleries in Paris (he exhibited there for the first time in 1922), Madrid, Palma, Saragossa, Bordeaux and Biarritz.