Francesc Gimeno

FRANCESC GIMENO I ARASA (Tortosa, Tarragona, 1858 - Barcelona, 1927).
"Landscape from inside a cave".
Oil on canvas.
Signed in the lower right corner.
Measurements: 36 x 57 cm; 54 x 74,5 cm (frame).

Francesc Gimeno was a painter and draftsman trained from a young age in Tortosa, who developed his career on the fringes of the dominant modernism. The scenes painted by Gimeno represent the raw reality, without aesthetic concessions, and reveal an extraordinary painter and draftsman. His work, of a direct and transgressive realism, stood out above all for its expressiveness, which dominates over the rest of the plastic values. Gimeno always considered himself as a worker, he never hid his condition of worker, and neither his figure nor his work fit into the bourgeois environments and circles. After moving to Barcelona and working as a decorator, he traveled to Madrid, where he studied the masters of the Prado, especially Velázquez, and trained in realist landscape painting. On his return, he turned down commissions and lived apart from the art market, focusing on painting his immediate surroundings and landscapes. His style, of expressive realism and strong brushstrokes, was misunderstood by critics and the public, which accentuated his personal and professional isolation. Even so, he participated in some exhibitions and obtained some recognition. It was not until 1915 when his work received greater attention thanks to his first individual exhibition, which allowed him to dedicate himself more fully to painting. The recognition of Gimeno's work grew in the last years of his life until it culminated in the homage that, at Christmas 1925, was dedicated to him in the Sala Parés. The MACBA dedicated an exhibition to him in 1978, and in 2006 the Museo Nacional de Arte de Cataluña held the first truly anthological exhibition dedicated to his work. Gimeno is represented in the Prado Museum, the MACBA in Barcelona, the Montserrat Museum, the National Art Museum of Catalonia, the Francisco Godía Foundation and the J. Sala collection, as well as in several important private collections.