Jacint Salvadó

Exhibition in homage to Jacint Salvadó.

Continuing with our line of recovering artists of the historical avant-gardes, we close 1994 with an exhibition in homage to Jacint Salvadó.

The figure of Salvadó within the Spanish school of Paris is not as well known in Barcelona as it deserves to be, although his contribution, first in expressionism and later in abstraction, is among the most interesting of his generation. With this anthology, which covers the bulk of his career, we wish to vindicate his work.

In 1907 he settled in Barcelona, where he studied at La Llotja. He subsequently travelled all over Spain until he settled in France in 1913. There he became part of the Parisian art world, exhibiting in various galleries and taking part in salons such as Les Tulleries and the Salon d'Automne.

In the early 1920s he met André Derain, with whom he worked, and later Picasso, who immortalised him as his model in his famous harlequin portraits. 

His work evolved from the expressionism of the 1920s towards the abstraction that characterises him. In the 1930s and early 1940s his work was gestural and rhythmic, but he gradually moved towards the postulates of August Herbin, practising a more geometric abstraction that led him to take part in the Salon des Realites Nouvelles.

In the mid-1950s he became interested in informalism in what Salvadó himself called "a need for freedom". His painting was close to that of artists such as Viera da Silva, but despite this evolution, he also continued to produce works close to geometry. All this came to fruition at the end of the 1970s in a work that is an explosion of geometry and colour with a strength and joy unbecoming of someone of his age.

This homage to Jacint Salvadó is his first solo exhibition in Catalonia since 1977. In that time, his painting has been seen in Madrid, Paris, Freiburg, Lisbon and Valencia, and we hope that this exhibition and the exhibition being prepared by the Generalitat will serve to put him in the place he deserves in his country.