Pere Borrell

PERE BORRELL DEL CASO (Puigcerdà, Girona, 1835 – Barcelona, 1910).
“Still Life with Fruit.”
Oil on cardboard.
Signed in the lower left corner.
Measurements: 30.5 x 38 cm; 48 x 56 cm (frame).

A painter, draftsman, watercolorist, and teacher, Pere Borrell trained at the Escuela de La Lonja in Barcelona and developed a body of work centered on landscape and directly inspired by nature. A staunch realist, he passed on to his students his approach to art and his technique of painting from life. He twice turned down a professorship at La Lonja before finally, in 1868, he founded his own private academy, where, for more than thirty years, artists of the stature of Román Ribera, Ricard Canals, Josep Maria Sert, Adrià Gual, Mariano Pidelaserra, and Xavier Nogués, among many others, were trained. Borrell participated in numerous group exhibitions, both in Barcelona and in Madrid and Paris. A great portraitist, sober and direct in his style, he also painted landscapes, religious works, and genre scenes, in a style influenced by the Nazarenos. His works are currently included in the Banco de España Collection, at MACBA, and at the Cerdà Museum in Pugicerdà.