Carles Planell

CARLES PLANELL (Barcelona, 1927–2008).
“Temps passat.”
Oil on canvas.
Signed in the lower right corner.
Titled on the reverse.
Measurements: 100 x 81 cm.

The work belongs to the most intimate and symbolic realm of Carles Planell’s mature period, a phase in which the artist once again incorporated recognizable figures and objects into a rigorous and silent spatial composition. The Fundació Vila Casas has highlighted, precisely in this body of work, the presence of stationary objects, aged tones, and an enigmatic symbolism that lends his compositions a marked sense of timelessness.

In “Temps passat,” Planell constructs a space of great austerity. In the lower section, stony forms with rounded volumes accumulate, while in the upper section, an animal skull—meticulously rendered—appears isolated and suspended. Its almost archaeological precision is a hallmark of the scene, contrasting with the vagueness of the surroundings and reinforcing the meditative nature of the scene. The skull, the stones, and the weathered tones evoke vestiges of something that has vanished. Geometry and symbolism thus coexist in an image of marked stillness, characteristic of the hermetic and poetic world developed by Planell in his mature years.

Carles Planell was a leading figure in the renewal of postwar Catalan painting, particularly associated with Informalism and the exploration of pictorial space. A member of the Cercle Maillol and the Sílex group, he won the bronze medal at the 1955 Alexandria Biennale and, in 1960, participated in the Venice Biennale and an exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum in New York. His artistic trajectory evolved from Informalism toward geometric abstraction and, later, toward a language characterized by rigorous spatial organization and rich symbolism. His work is represented in collections including the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía and the Fundació Vila Casas.