Joaquín Sunyer

JOAQUÍN SUNYER DE MIRÓ (Sitges, Barcelona, 1874 - 1956).
Untitled.
Oil on canvas.
Signed in the lower right area.
Measurements: 46 x 38 cm; 62 x 55 cm (frame).
Joaquim Sunyer's landscape painting occupies a fundamental place within the Catalan noucentisme, an artistic and intellectual movement that emerged in the first decades of the 20th century as a reaction against modernism and the more emotional or decorative tendencies of the turn of the century. In Sunyer's work, the landscape ceases to be only a naturalistic representation to become a harmonious, serene and deeply Mediterranean construction.
After studying at the Escuela de La Lonja in Barcelona, Sunyer began his career as an illustrator of popular scenes in "La Vanguardia" in 1896. Shortly thereafter he settled in Paris, where he specialized in street scenes and intimate interiors, which he treated in a style influenced by prostimpressionism. In Paris he befriended Picasso and Hugué, and exhibited in the Salons. Between 1905 and 1906 he traveled through Castile, on the initiative of the art dealer Henri Barbazanges, who wanted Spanish themes. He returns in 1907 to Paris, and makes several exhibitions in the French capital and in Liege. He went to Sitges in 1910, at a time when his style had been losing its post-impressionist influences and was approaching the Mediterranean themes and the simplified canon figures of Cézanne. The following year, Sunyer organizes a personal exhibition in the Faianç Catalá that placed him, after Nonell's death, at the head of the Catalan painting of the moment. During the following years he travels and exhibits in Europe, but returns to Catalonia at the outbreak of the First World War. Settled in Sitges, he nevertheless took part in the Paris and Barcelona Salons. After fleeing Spain because of the Civil War, he returned to Spain and settled in Barcelona in 1942. In 1949 he was awarded the Legion of Honor, and later special rooms were dedicated to him at the Hispano-American Art Biennials in Barcelona. At the Havana Biennial in 1954, he was awarded the Grand Prize for a lifetime of work. An anthological exhibition was also held in Madrid in 1974, commemorating the centenary of his birth. As an easel painter he was the most representative of the "noucentisme". His landscapes and female nudes stood out especially, as well as his portraits, totally distant from traditional painting. Currently, Joaquín Sunyer is represented in the MACBA, the Fine Arts Museum of Bilbao, the Georges Pompidou Center in Paris and the Reina Sofía National Art Center in Madrid.