José María Mallol Suazo

JOSÉ MARÍA MALLOL SUAZO (Barcelona, 1910 - 1986).
"Female figure".
Oil on canvas.
Signed in the lower right corner.
With label on the back of the Sala Parés.
Measurements: 65 x 55 cm; 85 x 75 cm (frame).
Mallol Suazo was formed in the School of La Lonja, in Barcelona between 1929 and 1935. He was a cartoonist as well as a painter, and published humorous illustrations in "En Patufet", "Virolet" and "L'Esquitx". The first exhibition of his work took place at the Salon d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona in 1936. That same year he received an award at the Spring Exhibition in Barcelona and, in 1938, the Nonell Painting Prize, awarded by the Tardor Gallery. In 1945 he became a member of the group of artists of the Sala Parés, a gallery where he met the collector Josep Omar Gelpi, who became his dealer from then on. Mallol did not allow himself to be dragged along by the prevailing artistic trends, always remaining faithful to his own realistic-poetic language, in this work Mallol Suazo offers us a still life made up of fruit and various ceramic pieces arranged anarchically against a modern background of white and green stripes. The artist draws the forms with a broad, free and impastoed brushstroke and uses a chromatic range based on greens, grays, blues, among which the bright red of one of the vegetables stands out. In 1987, a year after his death, the Sala Parés dedicated a large exhibition in homage to Mallol. The artist is also represented in museums as important as the National Art Museum of Catalonia, the Museum of Valls, the Historical Archive of the City of Barcelona and the Abbey of Montserrat, as well as in important private collections.