JOSEP GARCÃA LLORT (Barcelona, 1921-2003). "Pineville, Louisiana - Clarà , Barcelona" 1958-1959.

JOSEP GARCÃA LLORT (Barcelona, 1921-2003).
"Pineville, Louisiana - Clarà , Barcelona" 1958-1959.
Oil on canvas.
Signed and dated in the lower right corner. Dated, titled and signed on the back.
Measurements: 87,5 x 102 cm; 102 x 117 cm (frame).
The cities of Pineville (USA) and Clarà (Spain) were important in the personal and artistic log of Garcà a Llort, whose work was impregnated with the environments in which he lived immersed: for example, his cabin in Louisiana, close to an area of swamps full of alligators, enriched his bestiary. In this painting, ecclesiastical architecture is subjected to the multicoloured geometry that characterises his plastic imagery. It seems to emulate the chromatic tesserae that make up stained-glass windows.
After studying at the Massana School and the Cercle Artà stic de Barcelona, Josep Garcà a Llort moved to Paris with a grant from the French state. In 1953, he took up residence in Louisiana for a few years, alternating between Barcelona and the USA. He held his first exhibitions at the Syra (Barcelona, 1950) and Moderne (New York, 1955) galleries, and it was at the Sala Dalmau in Barcelona that he held most of his solo exhibitions (1988, 1994, 2003). He also exhibited in Madrid (Sala Prado del Ateneo, Altex gallery, Sala Abril), Salamanca (Artis gallery), Bordeaux (Casa de Goya Cultural Centre), etc. He was part of the exhibition "Utopà as del origen. Figurative avant-gardes in Catalonia", held at the Palau Moja in Barcelona in 2006. The following year, Sala Dalmau devoted an important retrospective to him, and the book written by the critic Jordi Benet on his life and work was presented at the opening. His pictorial production, full of childhood memories and experiences from his youth, crossed by a satirical vein, is populated by a particular bestiary full of birds with a violent palette. In a style close to German expressionism, his "figures of post-Picassian geometry" are broken down into panels whose curved or curvilinear bands separating primary colours are reminiscent of the art of stained glass. He is represented in the Museum of Contemporary Art of Barcelona (MACBA), among other collections.