Francesc Artigau (Barcelona, 1940) is one of the leading representatives of the new figuration in Catalonia who, in the mid-sixties, challenged the hegemony of informalism by once again taking the everyday environment and immediate reality as a source of inspiration and developing a figuration marked by social and political denunciation, as well as a criticism of the incipient consumer society of that late Francoist Spain which, with developmentalism, had just joined economic well-being, after the gray years of the post-war period, but which remained lacking the basic principles of freedom.
Now, on the occasion of the artist’s 80th birthday, the exhibition reviews the first stage of a prolific artistic career spanning more than fifty years, the period between his first exhibition in a commercial gallery, in 1965, and the first democratic elections, in 1977.
Francesc Artigau (Barcelona, 1940) is one of the leading representatives in our country of the new figuration that, in the mid-sixties, challenged the hegemony of informalism, which had been capitalized on by the Francoist government’s propaganda as a symbol of a Spanish modernity integrated into international trends. With a figuration that takes up the everyday environment and immediate reality as a source of inspiration, he develops a painting often marked by social and political denunciation, and criticism of the incipient consumer society of that late Francoist Spain that, after the gray years of the post-war period, had just joined the economic well-being with developmentalism , but continued to lack the basic principles of freedom. Artigau focuses his gaze on the new oligarchies that support and at the same time benefit from the regime, the new idols that have emerged from the mass media , contemporary international events -such as the French May revolts-, the problem of man in the society of the spectacle and his alienation or the impact of waste on the environment, among other issues. Topics that, in many cases, continue to be fully valid.
As Rafael Santos Torroella said from his rostrum in El Noticiero Universal , on the occasion of the artist’s second solo exhibition at the René Metras Gallery, in 1969, “Artigau could be placed among the painters of social criticism that are so prevalent today. But he is more of an ironic chronicler than a pamphleteer critic” (October 22, 1969).
The exhibition “Artigau. Chronicles of a Reality, 1965-1977” reviews the first stage of a prolific career spanning more than fifty years, the period between his first exhibition in a commercial gallery, in 1965, and the first democratic elections in the Spanish State, in 1977. This event marks a turning point in the effervescence of militant culture during the process of democratic restitution, a moment in which Artigau, after progressively abandoning the use of mass media images, returns to his sketchbooks and resumes painting from nature, giving way to a less committed and incisive, more hedonistic work, with a clear predominance of drawing and color.
Sergi Plans
Exhibition curator
Francesc Artigau in his studio (1966)
Painter, draftsman and engraver, Francesc Artigau Seguí was born in Barcelona in 1940 into a family of craftsmen linked to the world of theatre and theatrical props. At the age of fourteen he joined the family business to work, an environment that would mark his habit and taste for artisanal forms and the use of pigments. At the same time he began to study at the School of Arts and Crafts, section IV, in the Hostafrancs neighbourhood (1954-1958), where he took classes in drawing, modelling and art history with professor FP Verrié, who would influence him forever. He also frequented the workshop of the post-impressionist painter Joaquim Asensio Mariné on Sant Pere Més Baix street. In 1958 he entered the Escola de Belles Arts de Sant Jordi in Barcelona, in Plaça de la Verònica, (1958-1963), where he deepened his studies of anatomy, perspective, notes from life, and showed an evident appreciation for the craft of painting; he coincided with prominent teachers such as Miquel Farré or Rafael Santos Torroella, from whom he would receive lasting influences. He completed his training in the open workshops of the Cercle Artístic de Sant Lluc.
In February 1965 he held his first solo exhibition in a commercial gallery, the Belarte gallery, with excellent critical acceptance, and a year later, his exhibition at the René Metras gallery in Barcelona marked the step towards a brand new realism of clear social denunciation, with a relaxed painting dominated by vivid and vibrant color, in which he recreated leisure scenes from a society that had just entered economic well-being after the gray years of the post-war period.
In the early 1970s, Artigau portrayed the problems of man in a consumer society and the impact of waste on the ecology; his painting touches on aspects of reality and criticizes the prevailing attitude of appearances and social puritanism of the time, while opposing the extensive means of mass alienation. From the mid-1970s, he gradually abandoned the use of mass media images to return to his sketchbooks and resume painting from life, which gave way to a less aggressive figuration. In these years, he would predominate over subjects of the interior of the studio with a model.
Freed from the socio-political burden of the moment, like many other artists who had been ethically involved with their work, at the end of the seventies he completely opted for a figuration with warmer, more lyrical images, with familiar faces, places and architectures from his life itineraries, travel memories, literary references and cultural testimonies, which would define his work to the present day.
Artigau understands the world as a landscape scene worthy of contemplation, in which the painter pours all his knowledge of painting. For him, reality is never banal. One of his values is, precisely, to give a plastic dimension to normality and highlight the double dimension -usual and at the same time unusual- of everyday life. His painting is the result of the indissoluble union of memory and experience. An admirer of Piero della Francesca and Matisse, under a vigorous brushstroke and intense chromaticism, he plays with perspectives and illusionistic effects in the treatment of eternal themes such as the female figure or the model and the artist’s studio.
The foundation of Artigau’s painting is drawing, rational, categorical, close to the idea. Drawing is for Artigau the first expressive and compositional resource and it is for this reason that, sure of his aptitude for drawing, he goes in search of color, with which he investigates, seeks, investigates the most appropriate modules to unify the contrariety of the reflective and intuitive characters, of line and color.
ANTONI MARÍ (Fragment from the presentation of the exhibition “Cercant l’ombra” at the Sala Parés in 2006)
He has held more than 70 personal exhibitions and has participated in numerous collective and group shows. He has worked mainly with the galleries: Belarte, René Metras, Adrià, Trece, Sala Parés, Círculo del Arte and Galeria Alejandro Sales.
In addition to his artistic side, he has worked as a drawing teacher at the Eina school in Barcelona (1975-2010) and painting teacher at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Barcelona (1989-2005).
He has been working in his workshop on Sant Pere Més Baix Street since 1966.
His work is present in important public and private collections in the State:
The exhibition is complemented by the publication of a bilingual catalogue (Catalan-English), which includes a presentation by Carme Clusellas, director of the Girona Art Museum; and articles by Sergi Plans, curator; Manuel Vázquez Montalbán, Julià Guillamon and Mar Saiz.
The catalogue includes the works exhibited as well as the list of exhibitions by Francesc Artigau during the period 1963-1977.
Available for sale in the Museu d’Art shop and also online at the Generalitat de Catalunya bookstore .
