Armand Cardona Torrandell

ARMAND CARDONA TORRANDELL (Barcelona, 1928 - Sant Pere de Ribes, Barcelona, 1995).
"Imaginary portrait", 1974.
Acrylic and Indian ink on paper.
Dau al Set Gallery label on the back.
Signed and dated in the lower right corner.
Measurements: 69 x 49 cm, 88,5 x 68,5 cm (frame).

Armando Cardona Torrandell began to draw creating comics in the forties, during his adolescence, and later he will study commercial law and will work in different trades, while he will be formed as an artist in a self-taught way. During these years he mainly made drawings from life of scenes and characters of his neighborhood, until finally, in the fifties, he began to paint. In 1952, during a course at the Institut del Teatre, he met the brothers Joan and Ricart Salvat i Ferré, who introduced him to the intellectual circles of Barcelona at the time. He also discovered the marginal part of the city, adding darker and less bucolic scenes, starring delinquents, beggars and prostitutes, to his usual theme of seafaring motifs. It was then when he decided to devote himself completely to painting, and in 1957 he held his first exhibition, which took place at the Galeries Laietanes in Barcelona. Since then his artistic evolution will be frenetic, leaving his initial themes to focus on the human face and experimentation and play with matter, volumes and textures, as will be seen in his informalist stage (1959-62). Cardona Torrandell will thus become part of the Spanish avant-garde, and in the early sixties he begins to show his work outside Catalonia, managing to earn a living with his painting, dispensing with the patronage of his mother. In 1965 he began to exhibit regularly in Madrid, and that same year he carried out his first scenography project, creating the sets for "Ronda de mort a Sinera", with text by Salvador Espriu. A year later he did the same work for "La buena persona de Sexuan", by Bertolt Brecht, directed by Ricard Salvat. Also during these years he began to exhibit in Italy, first at the Prima Mostra Intrarrealismo in Florence. He also collaborated with the Sitges theater festival. He was associated with the Parpalló Group, and was part of Crónica de la Realidad and Intrarealismo. In 1971 he was awarded the Ynglada-Guillot drawing prize, and in 2015 his work was part of the exhibition "Del segon origen. Arts a Catalunya 1950-1977", held at the MNAC. His work, plastic testimony of today's world, is characterized by variegated compositions, plagued by human faces, calligraphic elements and inscriptions, which define his personal iconography. He organized his work in cycles: "Retablos de la gente" (1956), "Barcas" (1956), "Máquinas" (1957), "Paisajes Concretos" (1960), "Universo concentracional" (1965), "Numancia" (1972), "Naufragios" (1979), etc. He also dedicated some tribute works to Sartre, Antonio Machado, Ungaretti and Lluís Companys. Cardona Torrandell is currently represented in the Victor Balaguer Museum in Vilanova i la Geltrú, the Vila Casas Foundation, the Rafael Zabaleta Museum and other public and private collections.