Alfred Sisquella

ALFRED SISQUELLA I ORIOL (Barcelona, 1900 – Sitges, Barcelona, 1964)
“Still Life with Fruit.”
Oil on canvas.
Signed in the lower right corner.
Measurements: 45 x 55 cm; 65 x 75 cm (frame).

Still life occupied a significant place in the work of Alfred Sisquella, who approached the genre from a modern figurative perspective based on formal simplification, chromatic composition, and an emphasis on the painterly medium. The Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya holds several examples of this approach, including a Still Life dated around 1930 from the Plandiura Collection and a Still Life with Fruit and a Pipe.

Sisquella trained at the Llotja in Barcelona and was a student of Francesc Labarta. In 1917, he helped found the group Els Evolucionistes, a collective that sought to renew Catalan figurative art from a position that was an alternative to both academicism and the early avant-garde movements. His work is represented in the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya and the Museu de Montserrat, and has been featured in exhibitions dedicated to Catalan realism of the interwar period organized by the Museus de Sitges, the Museu de Valls, and the Museu de la Garrotxa.