Emilio Grau Sala

EMILIO GRAU SALA (Barcelona, 1911 - Paris, 1975).
"In the garden".1974.
Oil on tablex.
Signed in the lower corner, signed and dated on the back.
Measurements: 38 x 46 cm; 57 x 65 cm (frame).

In this work, Grau Sala displays his colorist and decorative sensibility, constructing a scene in which the human figure is integrated with naturalness in a vibrant vegetal environment. The composition presents a young woman sitting in a garden, accompanied by a girl holding a doll in her arms, turning the scene into a delicate domestic moment, but treated with the poetic distance characteristic of the artist.

The space of the garden is resolved by means of an authentic symphony of greens, applied with a variety of pictorial resources that enrich the texture: stippling, short and nervous strokes, diffuse stains and pigment-laden blurs. This technical diversity creates a visual fabric where a chromatic rhythm envelops and embraces the figures. Among this sea of green, small touches of orange and ochre suggest the trees, and further in the background, the roof of a house can be seen, barely defined, which adds depth without breaking the decorative character of the whole.

The young woman wears a striped suit resolved with directional strokes that give movement and a certain graphic dynamism typical of Grau Sala's modern aesthetics. Next to her, the girl holds a doll whose red dress becomes a chromatic point of intensity, an accent that stands out against the greenish range of the landscape. More than portraits, they are soft presences that dissolve among the tones of the garden, forming part of a lyrical atmosphere where figure and nature merge through color.

Grau Sala studied at the School of Fine Arts in Barcelona, an apprenticeship that he combined with an essentially self-taught training. In 1930 he held his first exhibition at the Badriñas gallery in Barcelona. When the Civil War broke out, he moved to Paris, and that same year, 1936, he won the first Carnegie Prize. In the twenty-five years that he remained in the French capital, he was closely acquainted with the avant-garde, although he always opted for a colorist figuration, derived from impressionism and fauvism. In fact, he soon became known in Paris as a successor of the Impressionist spirit and values, directly related to Bonnard and Vuillard. The success of his style led Grau Sala to devote himself also to graphic work and scenography. The grace and finesse of his characters, the vivacity of the colors and the elegant atmosphere of the environments that he captured made him reap great success and recognition all over the world. He held several solo exhibitions, mainly in Barcelona and Paris, but also in cities such as New York, Toulouse, London and Los Angeles. In 1963 he returned to Barcelona, when the stagnant figuration of Franco's Spain began to be challenged by Oteiza, Chillida, Tàpies and the collective "El Paso". However, he remained faithful to his style, and until his death in 1975 he worked within his own personal line, centered on his favorite themes, female figures, interiors and landscapes, in a vaguely classical, nostalgic time setting of the nineteenth century. After his death, and for more than a decade, Grau Sala was overshadowed by the multiple novelties that were emerging in democratic Spain, but from the 1990s onwards, the new boom in mid-level collecting relaunched Grau Sala, as he was understood as an interpreter of Impressionism in a Spanish key. Works by Emilio Grau Sala are kept in the National Museum of Art of Catalonia, the Esteban Vicente Museum of Contemporary Art and the Óscar Domínguez Institute of Contemporary Art and Culture.