Skip to main content

Josep de Togores Biography

Josep de Togores

(Josep de Togores i Llach; Cerdanyola, 1893-Barcelona, ​​1970) Spanish painter.After a first realistic stage, with a predominance of the nude, he drifted towards a style with a religious theme.He also worked on mural painting and book illustration.

Born into a wealthy family and with intellectual and artistic concerns, he soon revealed a great sensitivity for drawing.At thirteen years of age, he became deaf due to meningitis.In those years he was a drawing student of Joan Llaverias, who advised the father to let his son's artistic potential develop to the maximum.In 1906, father and son traveled to Paris and then to Belgium in the hope of curing the boy's deafness.

A year later, stimulated by the impression made on him by the Monet painting he saw at the International Exhibition in Barcelona, ​​Josep de Togores began to paint his first oil paintings.After a period of apprenticeship with Félix Mestres in Barcelona, ​​he painted some worthy paintings, the best known of which is El loco de Cerdanyola (1909), shown in the Parés room in Barcelona before it was awarded at the Universal Exhibition in Brussels (Belgium) and acquired by the Belgian Government.

Portrait of Madame Claire (1922), by Josep de Togores

With this work he opened what has been considered his impressionist stage.In 1911 he won a third medal at the Barcelona Fine Arts Exhibition.Two years later, encouraged by his family, he went to Madrid for a few months to immerse himself in the painting of the Prado Museum, and that same year he returned to Paris with a grant from the Barcelona City Council.In the French capital he discovered painters who were to be decisive in the directions of aesthetic taste, mainly Cézanne and Matisse, from whom he drew fundamental lessons of classicism.With the outbreak of the First World War (1914-1918), Togores decided to leave Paris and return to Barcelona.

It was then when, in contact with some representatives of the Catalan pictorial Noucentisme (Sunyer, Nogués, Casanovas or JM Junoy) and with the lesson learned in France, he began to abandon the impressionist procedures to pay more attention to the line, volume and materiality of objects.Once the drama of the death of his mother (1915) and the bankruptcy of the family fortune had been overcome, the art of Josep de Togores began to give its best.

In 1919 he settled again in the city of the Seine, this time for eleven years.There he frequented Picasso, Gris, Utrillo, Modigliani and other artists, although he remained in a precarious situation until he got a contract with the gallery owner Kahnweiler, thanks to which he exhibited successfully in various European capitals.In the catalog of his first solo exhibition (1922), Max Jacob spoke of "cubistic vigor", "linear composition", "constructive analyst", etc., characteristics that related his art to the new German objectivity and to the current Italian valori plastici .

Sleeping children (1927), by Josep de Togores

Some excellent paintings from the 1920s are the portrait by Aleix de Togores , Two nudes and Bathers , as well as numerous exceptionally crafted female nudes, in whose formal sense classical Picassian academicism is mixed and the close carnal vitality of the best Sunyer.In 1926 he held a triumphant exhibition in Barcelona, ​​but the city's official museums still considered his art too scandalous.Between 1928 and 1930 his work changed: bodies were derealized and transformed into almost abstract figures, which gradually drifted towards a kind of anthropomorphic calligraphy close to the aesthetics of French automatic surrealism.

After a few years of practicing this type of surrealism, quite strange in Spain, Togores returned to classicism and a conventional figuration, a bit standardized, but almost always of excellent technical invoice.In his last creative stage, he became interested in religious themes, encouraged by his activities as a restorer of ancient altarpieces.His graphic work destined for bibliophile editions is also of great interest.Since the mid-1940s he presented his works at the Sala Parés and also in galleries and museums in Madrid.It is represented, among others, in the Reina Sofía National Art Center Museum (Madrid) and in the National Art Museum of Catalonia (Barcelona).

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Jose Triadó Mayol Biography

José Triadó Mayol (Barcelona, ​​1870- id ., 1929) Spanish draftsman, former bookseller and painter.He collaborated with his drawings in the magazines El gato negro (1898), Album Salón (1898-1899) and Hispania (1899-1902).Outstanding author of ex libris, as a painter he made the triptych Las Cortes de Manresa for the Sant Jordi room of the Generalitat of Catalonia.
Post a Comment
Read more

Jose Maria Galvez Alonso Biography

José María Gálvez Alonso (Matanzas, 1834-Havana, 1906) Cuban lawyer and politician.After studying law at the University of Havana, he sympathized with the independence movement of Carlos Manuel de Céspedes that led to the Ten Years' War (1868-1878), and served their cause from New York, taking charge of the leadership of the newspaper The Revolution .Due to the complaints and appeals that he published on its pages, he was arrested and imprisoned by the Spanish authorities, and released with the amnesty that was granted once the war ended. José María Gálvez Alonso then founded the Partido Liberal Autonomista (1881), formation that during the following years competed for power with the Conservative Party.Gálvez, who advocated bringing Cuban society and institutions to a point of maturity and sufficient stability as a step prior to independence, also directed the Economic Society of Friends of the Country.He was president of the short-lived autonomous government of Cuba (1897-18...
Post a Comment
Read more

Camilo Sesto Biography

Camilo Sesto (Camilo Blanes Cortés; Alcoy, Alicante, 1946-Madrid, 2019) Spanish singer of light music, one of the most popular figures of the 1970s in Spain and Latin America.Initially interested in painting, in 1965 he joined a short-lived pop group called Los Botines. Camilo Sesto Five years later, in 1970, he began his solo career (at that time with the stage name of Camilo Sexto) and debuted discographically with the single "Llegará el verano".Later, with the former member of Los Brincos Juan Pardo as producer, he adapted a Brahms piece to pop with the title "Buenas noches", which was relatively successful.They were followed by "A ti, Manuela", "Ay, ay, Roseta" and the popular song "Algo de mi" (1972), nominated by the chain Ser as song of the summer.A year later, in November, he participated in the OTI International Festival as a representative of Televisión Española with the song "Algo más", composed by Juan Calde...
Post a Comment
Read more

The history of the flags of the world

Maybe you've ever stopped to think where the flags come from, because they have those colors or shapes, because some have drawings and others have stripes.Because there are flags of different countries that are very similar, it may be a coincidence or perhaps they have something in common.To this and other questions we will answer in this article that we have titled The history of the flags of the world. History of the flags of the world | Origin of the Flags The flags are responsible for generating the identity signals of a country , it is the embodiment of a series of values ​​that hold a community together or region that share a series of characteristics, whether geographical, cultural or historical. When several nations have shared a common period in history, it is normal that they also share symbols, examples such as the flags of the Nordic countries or as with New Zealand and Australia. Today all countries are represented by their corresponding flag, but ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Josef Willem Mengelberg Biography

Josef Willem Mengelberg (Utrecht, 1871-Zuort, 1951) Dutch conductor.He studied in his hometown with Richard Hol, Henri Wilhelm Petri and Anton Averkamp and later moved to Cologne (Germany), in whose conservatory he studied theory and counterpoint with G.Jensen, piano with I.Seiss and organ with F.W.Franke, in addition to directing and composing with Franz Wüllner. He was musical director of the Lucerne Conservatory in 1892 and years later, in 1895, he obtained the position of director of the Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orchestra, a position he held until 1945.He also continued directing the Museum Concerts group in Frankfurt between 1907 and 1920.From 1899 he annually conducted the Amsterdam Toonkunst Choir in its interpretation of the Passion According to Saint Matthew by JS Bach. He also conducted the American National Symphony Orchestra in New York between 1920 and 1929 and was principal conductor of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra from 1921 until he left it due to differen...
Post a Comment
Read more

Joseph H. Maclagan Wedderburn Biography

Joseph H.Maclagan Wedderburn (Forfar, 1882-Princeton, 1948) British mathematician.Professor at Princeton University, he was editor of the Proceedings of the Edinburgh mathematical society (1905-1909) and the Annals of mathematics (1912-1928).He stated a theorem ( Wedderburn's theorem ) according to which every finite field is commutative.
Post a Comment
Read more

Josef sudek Biography

Josef Sudek (Kolín, 1896-Prague, 1976) Czechoslovakian photographer.It began with landscapes and panoramas of Prague in which it followed the pictorial style.Later he concentrated on everyday objects, romantic interiors, still lifes and portraits.
Post a Comment
Read more

Joseph I Bonaparte Biography

José I Bonaparte (Ajaccio, France, 1768-Florence, 1844) King of Spain (1808-1812).Napoleon Bonaparte's older brother, he studied law and devoted himself to business.His brother appointed him King of Naples and, later, in 1808, of Spain, to which he immediately moved. José I Bonaparte When he arrived in Madrid, Spain was in revolt due to the mutiny of May 2, and he barely had time to settle down, as he had to leave hurriedly before the French defeat in Bailén.After the intervention of Napoleon himself, with the bulk of the French army, he was able to establish his government in the capital of the kingdom, but his liberal and enlightened measures met with popular hostility, which made him the victim of ridicule regarding his supposed alcoholism (he received the nickname by Pepe Botella ). After the battle of the Arapiles, and before the advance of the Duke of Wellington, he left Madrid taking a large amount of wealth, according to his detractors, and moved to Vitoria, where...
Post a Comment
Read more

Jose Sanchez Guerra Biography

José Sánchez Guerra (Cabra, 1859-Madrid, 1935) Spanish politician.A member of the Cortes for the Liberal Party, he supported Maura.Minister of the Interior (1903-1904) and Development (1908-1909), he held the leadership of the Government (March-December 1922), but had to resign as a result of the Annual disaster.When the dictatorship was proclaimed, he went into exile (1927) to France.In 1929 he returned to Spain to lead an uprising against the dictatorship, which failed.After the fall of Berenguer, he tried to save the monarchy, unsuccessfully, meeting with the Revolutionary Committee.Shortly after, he left politics.
Post a Comment
Read more