Josep María Martínez Lozano

JOSEP MARTÍNEZ LOZANO (Barcelona, 1923 - 2006).
"Venice", 1951.
Oil on canvas glued to wood.
Signed, titled and dated in the lower area.
Measurements: 24 x 33 cm; 41 x 49 cm (frame).
Josep Maria Martinez Lozano was an outstanding Catalan painter and watercolorist, recognized especially for his dedication to landscape and seascapes, genres in which he achieved a remarkable mastery. From a very young age he showed a deep interest in painting, an inclination that soon became a vocation. He trained at the School of Arts and Crafts of the Llotja, where he was a disciple of the masters Ramon Sanvisens and Joaquim Terruella, figures who had a decisive influence on his technical training and his artistic sensibility.
In 1946, during his stay in Figueres, he met the painter Ramon Reig, who introduced him to the world of watercolor, a technique that would definitively mark his career. Reig not only transmitted to him a mastery of the medium, but also a passion for the transparency and spontaneity inherent to this discipline. Martínez Lozano presented his first individual exhibition in 1951, at the Sala Gaspar in Barcelona, and later also exhibited in various European countries, such as Italy, France, England and Belgium, thus consolidating his international projection.
Between 1955 and 1957 he lived in Montblanc, in the Conca de Barberà region, where he produced an abundant landscape work inspired by the rural and urban environments of the area. During this period his studio, known as "El Cau", became a meeting point for numerous artists who came to the town to participate in the Montblanc Art Biennials.
Throughout his career he received numerous awards and distinctions, including the National Watercolor Prize in 1975. In 1989, he founded the Watercolor Museum in Llançà. In 2004 he was appointed member of the Royal Catalan Academy of Fine Arts of St. George and honorary president of the Association of Watercolorists of Catalonia.