Joan Hernández Pijoan

JOAN HERNÁNDEZ PIJUAN (Barcelona, 1931 - 2005).
"Seated woman", 1958.
Oil on paper glued to cardboard.
Signed and dated in the lower left corner.
Measurements: 40 × 30 cm.; 57 × 45 cm. with frame.

Joan Hernández Pijuan resolves the feminine figure by means of a great formal sobriety, contained palette and an intense contrast between the dark silhouette and the green background. The model, seated in a recollected attitude, appears synthesized in essential volumes, with the face barely suggested and the body defined by planes of black, gray, white and earth.

The thick brushstroke and the construction by chromatic masses reveal a sensibility close to the searches of post-war Catalan painting, between expressive figuration and a progressive tendency towards synthesis. In this sense, the piece is especially interesting as a testimony of Hernández Pijuan's early years, before the consolidation of his most essential and abstract language.

Joan Hernández Pijuan was a fundamental figure of Spanish art in the second half of the 20th century. Trained in Barcelona and Paris, he developed an oeuvre marked by austerity, landscape, memory and reflection on space. His work is represented in institutions such as the Reina Sofía Museum, the MACBA, the MNAC and the IVAM, among other public and private collections.