Miquel Villá

MIQUEL VILLÀ I BASSOLS (Barcelona 1901-1988).
"Landscape of Masnou".
Oil on board.
Signed and located on the back.
Measurements: 28 x 38 cm; 40 x 50 cm (frame).
The work presented here is a clear example of the particular and characteristic style of Miquel Villá. In it, the painter rigorously organizes the composition, clearly separating the foreground from the background. Thus, we find in the foreground the road, which emerges from the very edge of the painting, guiding our gaze towards the houses that occupy the background. However, despite this compositional exercise of classical character, the artist treats the work from a new plastic language. For this he uses a blurred brushstroke that provides a volumetric sensation and also does not delimit the spaces, but combines them with each other.
Miquel Villà i Bassols was a Spanish painter, and one of the main representatives of Fauvism in Spain. At the age of 13 his father, a wine merchant, took him with him to Colombia (Bogota). There he attended the school of fine arts until 1918. In 1920 he discovers Paris, which will be his habitual residence until 1930. In Paris he attends the Colarossi Academy. He befriends Jean Fautrier, Marcel Duchamp, Togores, Pancho Cossío and the sculptor Pablo Gargallo, who will greatly influence his artistic career. His main influences were Cezanne and, at the beginning of his artistic career, Maurice de Vlaminck. He receives notorious influences from the last period of Rembrandt. From 1930 he resides mainly in Catalonia: Barcelona, Masnou, Puebla de Segur, and spends some time in Ibiza. In 1985 he was distinguished by the Generalitat de Catalunya with the Cross of Sant Jordi.