Josep Puigmartí

JOSEP PUIGMARTI VALLS (Monistrol de Calders, 1932–2020).
"Profile," 2005.
Mixed media on canvas.
Signed and dated in the lower right corner. Signed, dated, located, and titled on the reverse.
Measurements: 80 x 60 cm; 101 x 80 cm (frame).
Created in 2005, Profile belongs to a particularly significant phase in Josep Puigmartí’s career, when the artist, already internationally renowned, was in the prime of his creative maturity. Having settled in Sitges in the late 1980s, and distanced from the nomadic and cosmopolitan life that had marked much of his career, Puigmartí developed an intense and extraordinarily free body of work during these years.

An established artist on the international art market, Josep Puigmartí focuses his work on the surrealist language. Considered one of the most prolific artists in European visual art of the second half of the 20th century, the Catalan artist creates transgressive and original work inspired by his travels around the world: Paris, California, Sweden, Denmark, and Japan are the cities that have witnessed the evolution of his technique, as well as the conception of his works. During the 1960s, 70s, and 80s, Puigmartí introduced into his surrealist paintings a distinct iconography of an erotic nature, earning him the reputation among critics of the time as a transgressive artist who practices a provocative style. As the artist himself states on his website, “I currently lead a life of routines, unlike before. Now I like being here, by the Mediterranean—I’ve never liked the night and its ghosts—getting up early, exercising, and locking myself in my studio where new works emerge without having been thought out beforehand. I draw, I create compositions with objects, I work and work. In life, it’s of little use to think if you don’t then get to work. You have to do things, never stop doing.” Currently, Puigmartí’s work can be found at the Hotel del Arte in Sitges, the city where he has resided since 1989.