Aleix Clapés Puig

ALEIX CLAPÉS PUIG (Vilasar de Dalt, 1846-Barcelona, 1920)
"Ecstasy".
Oil on canvas.
Signed on the back.
Measurements: 40 x 24.5 cm; 65 x 48.5 cm (frame).
Painter. Trained in Reus and at the Escuela de la Lonja in Barcelona, he was a disciple of Eugène Carrière in Paris and practised mural painting in Rome. A personal friend of Antoni Gaudí, he worked on the decoration of several of his works, such as the Palau Güell (Hercules in Search of the Hesperides, now disappeared) and the Casa Milà, where he decorated the lobbies with Xavier Nogués. He developed a style of a certain personal and tenebrous expressionism, which some authors have described as a precursor of James Ensor. He was also a designer of modernist-style furniture (Casa Ibarz, now in the Gaudí House-Museum). Director and owner of the magazine Hispania.