Ramon Folch Roca

RAMÓN FOLCH ROCA ( Sabadell , 1923 - Barcelona , 1988 ).
"Vase".
Oil on canvas.
Signed.
Measurements: 80 x 52 cm; 86 x 58 cm (frame).

Painter, ceramist, pedagogue and director of the School of Textile Design of Barcelona.
He began painting at a young age, along with other artists from Sabadell such as Joan Vilacasas, Andreu Castells or Xavier Oriach, who years later would form part of the first avant-garde nucleus of the city. Later he studied at the School of Arts and Crafts of Sabadell, where he obtained the highest qualification, which allowed him to get a scholarship from the Caja de Ahorros de Sabadell to continue his studies at the Escuela Superior de Bellas Artes de San Jorge de Barcelona (Llotja) where, between 1945 and 1950, he specialized in painting. In 1949 the school gave him a scholarship to continue his studies in France.
During these years he also exhibited in his hometown, participating in group exhibitions at the Academy of Fine Arts (1942, 1943, 1944) and the Círculo Sabadellés (1946). He also obtained other scholarships and distinctions: in 1944 he won second prize in the Young Painters Competition at the Atenea Galleries in Barcelona, where, only a year later, he exhibited for the first time.
While still studying at the Lonja, in 1950 he collaborated with the painters Andreu Castells and David Graells in the creation of the Salón de Arte Actual at the Academia de Bellas Artes de Sabadell, which was to play an important role in the cultural recovery of the city of Sabadell during the post-war period, in the Savings Bank of Sabadell (1953).
Once he finished his studies, in 1951 he obtained the first degree scholarship from the Amigó Cuyàs Foundation of the same school, which consisted of a four-month trip around Spain. In addition, the French Institute of Barcelona granted him the Maillol Circle Scholarship to study in Paris for a course in 1953 and, two years later, the Barcelona City Council granted him a scholarship to study for another six months in France, Belgium and Holland. His training abroad was definitive in his future professional career. In Paris, in addition to opening up to all kinds of pictorial currents, he established relationships with figures such as the ceramist Pierre Canivet or the fashion designers Christian Dior and Pierre Cardin.
On his return, in 1955, he was awarded the second prize of the II Salon Biennial of Fine Arts of Sabadell, with the work Circo, which is currently preserved in the Museum of Art of Sabadell. He also participated in the third edition of this exhibition.
Towards the end of the fifties he made murals with various techniques such as stucco sgraffito with color, pyrography on wood and ceramics. During these years he participated in different national and foreign group exhibitions such as the Salón de Octubre, the Círculo Maillol or the 3rd Bienal Hispanoamericana de Arte. From the sixties onwards he focused on pedagogical research in art and design. Coming from a family from Sabadell dedicated to the textile industry and, therefore, a connoisseur of this world, and with the relations and knowledge obtained in Paris, he promoted a change of mentality in the field of industrial production, as Germany had done with the Bauhaus. Only five years later, in 1965, he focused all his efforts on turning all the knowledge he had acquired throughout his life into the creation of the Barcelona School of Textile Design, known as the "little Bauhaus" or "Barnahaus", which he directed from its foundation until his death. In this area of training he offered important pedagogical contributions, especially in the conception of design in the industrial process.
As for his work, during the training phase and following the advice of Antoni Vila Arrufat, he devoted himself to formal research giving expressive compositions of what he saw in his environment. We see for example Chicas Brodant or El abuelo enfermo . Later, his stays abroad allowed him to better understand the work of the impressionist and expressionist painters, as well as the constructivists and cubists, who exerted a notable influence on his work. His pieces reflect this contact, for example in La Sandía (Watermelon) or Desnudo (Nude). His work methodology was based on great exigency. Reflective and critical, Ramon Folch produced works that were often very elaborate. The first expressionist paintings had a critical and dramatic tone that was accentuated by a very limited palette.
The Museum of Art of Sabadell conserves works by Ramon Folch and in 2011 the Academy of Fine Arts of Sabadell dedicated an anthological exhibition to him.