Ramon Casas

RAMON CASAS CARBÓ (Barcelona, 1866 - 1932).
"Portrait of Darío de Regoyos".
Charcoal on paper.
Signed in the lower left corner.
Presents foxing.
Measurements: 28 x 20,5 cm; 59 x 51 cm (frame).

The friendship between Darío de Regoyos and Ramón Casas led both painters to share artistic interests and social circles, especially in the context of the artistic renovation in Catalonia. Although of Asturian origin, Darío de Regoyos was a regular at the café "Els Quatre Gats", an epicenter of Catalan Modernism, of which Ramón Casas was one of the main promoters and founders (along with Santiago Rusiñol and Pere Romeu).

From the very beginning Casas showed a clear predilection for portraiture, and a special mastery in capturing reality through a language that was totally his own, synthetic, expressive and modern, leaving behind the decorativism and symbolism of the prevailing Art Nouveau. In 1899, when he was only thirty-two years old, he inaugurated an anthological exhibition of his work in Barcelona. This exhibition made known to the public his collection of more than one hundred charcoal portraits of personalities of the time, painted that same year. This exhibition consecrated Casas as the best portraitist of his time, thanks not only to his formal mastery, but also to the perfect psychological description of his models.

An outstanding painter and draftsman, Casas began painting as a disciple of Joan Vicens. In 1881 he made his first trip to Paris, where he completed his training at the Carolus Duran and Gervex academies. The following year he participated for the first time in an exhibition at the Sala Parés in Barcelona, and in 1883 he presented a self-portrait at the Salon des Champs Elysées in Paris, which earned him an invitation to become a member of the Salon de la Societé d'Artistes Françaises. He spent the following years traveling and painting between Paris, Barcelona, Madrid and Granada. In 1886, suffering from tuberculosis, he settled in Barcelona to recover. There he came into contact with Santiago Rusiñol, Eugène Carrière and Ignacio Zuloaga. After a trip through Catalonia with Rusiñol in 1889, Casas returned to Paris with his friend. The following year he took part in a group exhibition at the Sala Parés, together with Rusiñol and Clarasó, and in fact the three of them continued to hold joint exhibitions there until Rusiñol's death in 1931. His works at this time are halfway between academicism and French impressionism, in a sort of germ of what would later become Catalan modernism. His fame continued to spread throughout Europe, and he held successful exhibitions in Madrid and Berlin, as well as participating in the Chicago World's Fair of 1893. Casas settled permanently in Barcelona, immersed in the modernist environment, although he continued to travel to Paris for the annual salons. He financed the premises that would become a point of reference for the modernists, the café Els Quatre Gats, inaugurated in 1897. Two years later he organized his first individual exhibition at the Sala Parés. While his fame as a painter grew, Casas began to work as a graphic designer, adopting the Art Nouveau style that came to define Catalan Modernism. In the following years his successes followed: he presented two works at the Universal Exhibition in Paris in 1900, won a prize in Munich in 1901, several of his works were included in the permanent exhibition of the Círculo del Liceo, had several international exhibitions and, in 1904, won first prize at the General Exhibition in Madrid. He is represented in the Prado Museum, the National Museum of Art of Catalonia, the Reina Sofia National Museum, the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, the Museum of Montserrat, the Cau Ferrat in Sitges, the Camón Aznar Museum in Zaragoza and the Contemporary Art Museums of Barcelona and Seville, among many others.