José Vilató

"J. FIN"; JOSÉ VILATÓ RUIZ (Barcelona, 1916 - Paris, 1969).
"Male figure".
Oil on canvas.
Signed in the lower right corner.
Measurements: 65 x 55 cm; 82 x 72 cm (frame).

Son of the neuropsychiatrist Juan Vilató and Lola Ruiz, Pablo Picasso's sister, Fin was initiated in the art in the family home. He trained at the School of Fine Arts of Sant Jordi in Barcelona, and participated for the first time in a group exhibition in the early date of 1932. In 1934 he resided in Mahón, Menorca, where he painted a series of works that he later exhibited in Barcelona. Mobilized, he fought in the war, and in 1939 he went to France. He returned the following year, when he became friends with Manolo Hugué. In 1943 he exhibited in Barcelona, in the Reig Galleries, with his brother Javier, A. Fabra and R. Rogent, in an exhibition that was considered the first artistic revulsive of the postwar period in Barcelona. With a grant from the French government, he settled in Paris in 1946. In the French capital, together with his brother, he frequented the Kahnweiler circle, with friends such as Matisse, Miró, Braque, Lam Leiris, Giacometti, Domínguez, Bores, Viñes, Eulard, Cocteau and, above all, his uncle Picasso. He also held several solo exhibitions during the fifties and sixties, in Paris, Saint Raphael, Barcelona, Bern, Madrid and Mallorca. He also worked in sculpture and mural painting, the latter discipline in which his works for the church of Coscojuela de Sobrarbe (1944) and the CSF factory in Paris (1960) stand out. In 1971 a posthumous anthological exhibition was dedicated to him in Barcelona.